“Lots of men been by here,” he said. “Soldiers or bandits—mebbe bot’.”
“What d’ye mean?” demanded Tom, waking up. “How can you tell?”
“Don’ have to be Injun to know dat. See tracks,” grunted Mendoza. “Mebbe hundred men come here from trail, amigo.”
Tom looked. The banks of the river were broken and trodden by the feet of many horses. Even in the dim light he could see that, though he would never have noticed it for himself. He admitted when Mendoza persisted that it did look as though a large party of horsemen had crossed the river.
“Well, they’ve passed anyhow, so we should worry. Got a gun?”
“Si,” grinned Mendoza, cheerfully, “I always got a gun.”
“Hold on, what’s this?” They had come around the corner and saw, by the edge of the road, the wrecked wagon. “That’s Herrick’s wagon,” said Tom, excitedly. “In the ditch!” He got down and went to investigate.
“Wheel’s busted. Horses must have got scared and bolted round the curve,” said the engineer, meditatively. “Nothin’ in the wagon. Looks bad to me; don’t it to you, Mendoza?”
“Si,” responded Mendoza. “We go by Soria’s place. He know mebbe what happen.”
“All right,” assented Tom, sadly. “If they’d got away on the horses seems to me we’d have seen or heard somethin’ of them on the road. Unless they went by the trail—in that case them fellers on horseback would have met ’em. Well, step on your gas, Mendoza, and let’s get to Soria’s.”