“Wall,” said Kit, still restless, “nobody can do more than try. An’ hyar’s a chance for you at mountain-man work. ’Less I’m much mistaken, those red rascals air making straight for——” and he described to Oliver a well-known box-canyon or enclosed pocket, among the hills 150 miles westward. Oliver nodded; he had been that far, once, upon a little trip with Kit Carson, and he remembered the trail. “They’ll take the critters thar an’ hide ’em; an’ now they won’t be expecting pursuit. With everybody fresh mounted, if you leave right after eating this evening you ought to get thar to-morrow evening, so as to rush the camp in ’arly morning. Pick a good hoss out o’ the cavvy, for yoreself. Fust go get something to eat. Thar come some o’ the men; I’ll tell ’em what we’re to do.”
Treading air and vastly excited, himself, Oliver sped away to make his preparations.
“Better fill yore powder flask, boy,” called Kit, kindly. “Help yoreself from my horn, yonder. An’ thar’s the bullets. They fit Ike’s gun. But don’t shoot ’less you have to; an’ if you do shoot, shoot as straight as if you war shooting rabbits. Remember, it air the bullets that hit that count.”
“Yes, sir; I’ll remember,” engaged Oliver, working eagerly.
So presently into the twilight glow rode the dozen teamsters, armed and mounted as well as practicable. Two and two they rode: their bearded, booted, flannel-shirted captain, and ragged Oliver high on a yellow horse, side by side in the lead.
Through the twilight, and through the gloaming, and through the starry night, at trot broken by now and then a brief space of walk, westward rode the little cavalcade, to surprise the Apaches.
The dark blue sky gradually paled; paled the dusky earth; coyotes homeward slinked; little brown birds twittered amidst the brush; from the east spread upward a pink radiance; and stiff and chilled from the night’s travel through the great open sage country, at rising of the sun the pursuit jogged into the first of the hill defiles.
As they rode, the horsemen ate; chewing at strips of dried buffalo meat.
Higher and more numerous waxed the hills, their long steep slopes covered with chaparral and stunted timber, and separated by bouldered water-courses, many of them dry. The trail seemed a blind one.