“Not to-day,” suggested Reuben.
“No, not to-day,” acknowledged the scout; “but there are other days to come.”
“Do you believe that that black leader, after to-day’s chase, will stay around this part of the country any longer? He will take his followers and start for some other part of the mountains.”
“Perhaps he will,” acknowledged Kit Carson, “but before that time comes we’ll have another chance at him.”
“You never can take him,” asserted Reuben. “I never in my life saw anything run the way that pony did. And it doesn’t make any difference whether he’s running on the plains or along a ledge of the rocks. Why, he followed a narrow little ledge for three hundred yards. I expected every minute to see him tumble into the bed of the stream that was twenty-five or thirty feet below him. As far as I could see he didn’t slip once.”
“Oh, yes, he’s a wonderful animal,” said Kit Carson quietly, “and we shall appreciate him all the more after we have had a chance to break him in.”
“You won’t break him in very soon,” said Reuben, shaking his head. “You stand just about as much chance of getting that black horse as you do of grabbing a streak of lightning by its tail.”
Kit Carson smiled and made no response to the assertion of his young companion, and then at his suggestion they all started on their way back to camp.
In silence the men advanced, and when two hours had elapsed, Kit Carson suggested: “I think I’ll go over to the Indian village. Do you want to come, Reuben?”
The lad hesitated a moment and then said, “I’m hungry.”