“What are they?” asked the surprised Deerfoot.
“Wild horses,” was the answer.
The Shawanoe was astonished, for he had never thought of anything of that nature. He had heard rumors, as far away as his own home, of droves of wild horses that roamed over the western plains, numbering many thousands. Reports of the same nature reached him when in St. Louis. Some one had told him that when the Spaniards came to the Southwest, more than two centuries before, a few of their horses had wandered off, and it was from them that the numberless droves had descended.
You need not be reminded that this is a fact. A century ago enormous droves of wild horses roamed over the Llano Estacado and in northern Texas, to which region and neighborhood they mainly confined themselves, though many of them were met on the plains a considerable distance to the northward. It would not be strange if our friends came in contact with them, though not one had yet been seen.
Mul-tal-la said that he and his companion encountered a herd that was as numerous as the buffaloes that had lately threatened them, and at one time the two were in danger of being run down by the equine rovers. By hard work, however, they got out of their way.
CHAPTER IX
A BATTLE ROYAL.
THE camp was astir early. George and Victor Shelton were surprised when told by Deerfoot of the visit received the night previous. A trapper had called upon him with three horses, conversed for an hour or more, and then departed, and was now miles away on the road to St. Louis. The Shawanoe related nothing of what passed between him and Jack Halloway except to say that he was belated in leaving the beaver runs in the mountains and meant to lose no time in reaching his distant home.
The towering peak, crested with snow, showed to the westward, but apparently it was little nearer than when first descried in relief against the blue sky. Mul-tal-la said that instead of keeping on to the peak and the range, which was quite extensive, they would now swerve to the northward and make more directly for the Blackfoot country. The headwaters of the North Fork of the Platte were among these elevations, and the journey would become easier through flanking them, as he and his companion had done when coming eastward. The range, however, trended to the northeast, and they would have to cross it in order to reach the sources of the numerous branches of the Yellowstone and Missouri. Then the course would bend to the northwest, parallel to the great Rocky Mountain range, but always east of it. Remember that the names of rivers and mountains which I use were wholly unknown to our friends, who had to rely for their general knowledge upon the information given by the observant Blackfoot.
The morning meal finished, and animals having been saddled and the packs replaced, Deerfoot, declining all offers to ride, asked George Shelton to loan him his spyglass for a few minutes. He pointed the instrument to the south, and stood for some time closely studying the horizon, for the sky was bright, and in the clear air his vision, thus aided, reached for a long distance.