As soon as the boy had relieved Ranger of his saddle and Bony of the heavy load he had so patiently carried all the day, he turned the animals loose to graze, and started a fire in front of the dilapidated brush shanty Zeke had recently occupied. Upon the fire were placed a camp-kettle and frying-pan, one filled with water taken from the brook that ran close by, and the other with slices of bacon. Supper was fairly under way in a few minutes, and while he was waiting for the fire to cook it, George busied himself in repairing the cabin.
It was while he was thus engaged that he accidentally discovered something for which he had been looking ever since he reached the grove, and that was a letter from Zeke. It was written on a piece of bark and fastened to a tree in plain sight, but somehow George had managed to overlook it. The letter was made up of rough characters which had been rudely traced on the bark by the point of the herdsman’s hunting-knife. The first was an Indian’s arrow—that was drawn so plainly that anybody could have told what it was—and it pointed toward something that looked like a whale with an unusually large head which was surmounted by a pair of horns. It was certainly intended to represent a fish with horns and the only one of the species in that country that George knew anything about was a catfish.
The next two characters might have been taken for almost anything, except the objects that George knew they were intended to represent, namely, a couple of water-falls. The next looked like a front view of a man’s face, but one side of it was flat, while the other was round. This was meant for the moon in its first quarter. Under the moon were four short, straight lines, headed by a cross like the sign of multiplication; and these were intended to represent the days of the week, the cross standing for Sunday.
Zeke, who had lived in the mountains and on the prairie all his life, did not know one letter from another, but he had left behind him a communication that George read as easily as you can read this printed page. If he had given it a free translation, it would have read something like this:
“I have gone toward Catfish Falls. It is near the time of the full moon. I left camp on Thursday.”
After writing this much, Zeke did just as many a school-boy does—he added a postscript, containing the only item of information that was really worth knowing. It made George open his eyes, too. It consisted of drawings of a pair of moccasins, a fire with a thick smoke arising from it, and several horses’ feet. It meant that there were Indians in the neighborhood; that they were hostile Apaches (George knew that by the shape of the moccasins), and that Zeke had seen the smoke of their fires and the tracks made by their horses.
George, who was accustomed to sudden surprises and always expecting them, did not seem to be at all disturbed by this very unpleasant piece of news. Although he had never had any experience with raiders, he was brave and self-reliant, knew just what to do in any emergency that might arise while he was on the plains, and felt abundantly able to take care of himself. He ran his eye over the letter and postscript once more, to make sure that he had read them aright, and then walked back to his fire and sat down. He did not spend any more time in repairing the cabin, for he knew now that he should not occupy it that night. When his supper was cooked, he ate it with great deliberation; after which he put out his fire and returned to the pack-saddle all the articles he had taken out of it. There was a goodly supply of bacon and coffee left, and this George intended should serve him for his next morning’s breakfast.
“I may be out of reach of wood and water by the time I grow hungry,” thought he, as he buckled the pack-saddle and made it ready for Bony’s back. “I can’t stop here to-night, for the timber is by no means a safe place to camp when there are Indians about. I wish Zeke had told me which way they were going when he saw them, for I don’t want to run right in among them before I know it!”
As soon as Bony’s burden was adjusted and Ranger had been saddled and bridled, George mounted and rode rapidly away from the grove, holding a straight course for Catfish Falls, but making no effort to find Zeke’s trail. In fact, he did not want to find it, and if he had stumbled upon it accidentally, he would have ridden away from it with all haste. The vicinity of that trail was as dangerous a place as the grove he had just left. A band of raiders might strike it at any time, and follow it up for the purpose of capturing the herd, and George, if he chanced to be in the way, would run the risk of being captured, too.
The boy rode rapidly as long as he could distinguish objects about him, and when the darkness had shut him out from the view of any skulking Indian or Mexican, who might chance to be watching him from a distance, he slackened his pace and turned off at right angles with the course he had been pursuing. He rode about a mile in this direction, and then went into camp, staking out his horse and mule, and lying down to sleep, with his poncho for a bed, his saddle for a pillow and his hair lasso for a protection from the visitors of which his cousin Ned stood so much in fear, the rattlers. He slept soundly, too, relying upon Ranger and Bony to arouse him, in case any one approached his camp, and awoke at the first peep, of day, refreshed and invigorated. A couple of hard biscuits, added to the coffee and bacon he had saved from his last night’s supper, furnished him with as good a breakfast as he cared for, and when it had been disposed of, George was ready to begin his day’s journey.