"That's jest their little game, cap," said the scout, puffing at his pipe. "You see, they'll keep along on the edge of the desert, so't they can have grass an' water in plenty, an' if you don't pester 'em none they won't go into the Staked Plains at all; but if you push 'em hard they'll run the critters in thar an' leave 'em, hopin' that you will run your hosses an' men to death while you are huntin' 'em up. You won't never see the young ones, nuther; an' I don't see why the colonel sent out sich a party as this so late in the day, anyhow. We'd oughter been a hundred miles along that thar trail by sun-up this mornin'."
George felt the deepest sympathy for Mr. Wentworth, who listened attentively to what the scout had to say, although he said nothing in return. His almost overwhelming sorrow showed itself in his face, but did not take the form of words.
As Captain Clinton had made no halt for dinner, the colonel having instructed him to find and receive the report of the scout as soon as possible, he decided to stop here and allow his men an hour or two for rest and refreshment. Giving their horses into the charge of some of the troopers, he and his two company commanders walked away with the scout, while George rode off to hunt up Bob Owens. He staked his own horse out beside Bob's, and then walked back with him to take a nearer view of the ruins.
"How do you suppose that that man in the sombrero and moccasins knows that the Indians who did this have fled toward the Staked Plains?" asked Bob after he and his friend had spent some moments in silent contemplation of the savages' handiwork. "He certainly hasn't had time enough to follow the trail clear to those plains."
"Of course not," answered George. "But he probably followed it far enough to see that it leads in that direction."
"Well, explain another thing while you are about it," continued Bob. "I have been out on a scout before now after the hostiles, following a trail that was as plain as the nose on one's face, when all at once the scout would leave that trail and strike off over the prairie where there wasn't a sign of a pony-track."
"He was taking a short cut on the Indians," observed George.
"I know that, and sooner or later he would bring us back to that trail again; and sometimes we would have gained so much on the hostiles—who had perhaps been twenty-four hours' journey ahead of us when we left the trail—that we would find their camp-fires still smoking. Now, what I want to know is this: How did that scout know that those Indians were going to that particular spring or creek or ravine near which we found the trail?"
"Have you ever hunted foxes?" asked George.
"I should say I had. When I left home I owned a hound that couldn't be beaten in running them, for he was posted in all their tricks. But what have foxes to do with hostile Indians?"