ON THE EVE OF THE ATTACK.
Cherokee Bill was ill at ease as regards the newcomers, and, whilst other scouts left the main body to discover what was the force approaching from the north, he took the almost opposite direction. But when a scout goes out thus "on his own hook," he makes sure of his way back being clear. A scout must return with news, that is his ruling motto. Besides, the Half-breed on the scouting path was very prudent. His line led him across a trail to Old Nick's Cutoff, and there he scrutinised the ground.
In a few minutes he frowned and stooped lower. He had perceived, scarcely more than discernible though, the mark of a human foot, invisible for other eyes. He gave some seconds' concentrated examination to it, for it was not an Indian's tread, nor a white man's in soft heelless shoes, but that of the wearer of pegged boots, such as are common on the border. They are too heavy and require too much reparation in dry weather to suit the hunters; they adopt the redskins' lighter and pleasanter footgear, as do the Canadian Half-breeds.
There was no doubt that one of Captain Kidd's crew had been here, and recently. Whence he came last and whither he was going now were the questions. That this was a spy of the gold grabbers was clear to Bill. Still, confirmation was far from easy. Except over a few square feet where a shallow rock basin had preserved moist soil, there was nothing but hard stone and dry rocks. The Cherokee chief was not disheartened for all that, being rather too experienced in desert tricks.
This solitary footprint was on the skirt of the woodland, the toe pointing thither.
"He's altogether too blamed cunning," muttered he, with an inward chuckle. "This might scoop in a white man, but not even half an Injin."
He dropped to the ground, and lying thereon like a geographer intently investigating a crabbedly written map, explored every inch of the soil. After a long while he caught sight, a couple of yards distant from the footmark—in the same direction—of a long thin scratch, made evidently by an iron instrument which had lightly slid along. That brought forth a smile, and he went back whence he came.
A huge old cedar rose at the wood border, and flung out protective boughs, so that one waved majestically above the lone footstep. He looked up at it without seeing anything out of the common. He shook his head and fell a-thinking. Then, going all around the tree, he picked out the best side for climbing, where weather had made it rugged, and was at the first branch in two or three minutes. There he stopped to have a look around. His lips curled in silent satisfaction. He crawled along the bough like a panther going to drop on a fawn, and reached a place where a cord had chafed half a ring on the round.
He could go down again—the mystery was solved.