"I've know'd a thing same as this afore," said Steve. "It war after one of them Injun raids 'way over them mountains, when the critters had come out on the warpath without so much as a warnin'. Wall, they killed and scalped every man, woman, and child as they could drop on, and fired the settlers' farms over fifty miles. George Trueman, he war a settler, and it seems he'd been 'way over the border ter see a man as was lookin' ter buy cattle. He comed back ter find the farm a mass of blackened cinders, his cattle gone, and the box as he kept his dollars in taken clear away. Trueman war wild. He war fixed up ter get married, and though he could put up with the burnin' of the farm, the loss of the money would pretty nigh ruin him. Yer kin guess what happened."
"Followed the critters, I suppose," suggested Abe.
"Sure. Got a band o' men together, same as we aer, and sets off. Wall, I war one of the band, and pretty soon I gets on ter a trail like this, made by a hoss that war wounded, but not so bad as he couldn't go. That trail ran on fer thirty mile, till you'd have thought the hoss would ha' fallen dead, and in the end we dropped into them critters, and George recovered the money."
"While this time we recover the man," laughed Abe. "Jest you hop into yer saddle agin, Steve. Ye'll ride easy thar, and it don't do that arm no good walkin' in these rough places. Reckon I kin follow the trail."
Thanks to the spots of blood, sometimes scattered sparsely on the stones, and at others imprinted in the form of a hoof Abe was able to stride along without a halt. For an hour he led the party without turning aside. Then suddenly he faced up the mountain, and began to clamber.
"Them critters brought their hosses up," he cried over his shoulder, "so guess yer kin do the same. But the goin' aer bad, and ye'd best be skeary, and look out fer holes."
The place was, in fact, difficult for horses, and it needed much care on the part of the riders to take them up such a steep and rough place. However, it was not long before the ground sloped a little less steeply, and then became almost flat. Abe led the way across this without a falter, and very soon Jack became aware of the fact that he and his friends were actually descending.
"A kinder hollow," explained Steve. "Precious soon things'll be happenin'."
Scarcely five minutes had elapsed, in fact, before the nerves of these hardy miners and hunters were somewhat startled by a loud report. A single shot rang out from some point in advance, and high up above them, while one of the horses squealed, plunged heavily, and then stood shivering and shaking.
"Wall, of all the critters!" cried one of the miners, slipping from the injured animal's back. "I didn't think as a man could see us down here in the hollow, let alone train a gun on us. Reckon it war lucky we war all spread out. Gently, lass. Yer ain't badly hurt. This here aer no wuss than a pinprick. The ball catched her two inches from her withers, on the very edge of the neck. It ain't worth mentionin', old gal."