After passing the biscachera, the trackers have not proceeded far, when Caspar again reins up with eyes lowered to the ground. The others seeing this, also bring their horses to a stand; then watch the gaucho, who is apparently engaged with a fresh inspection of the trail.
“Have you found anything else?” asks Cypriano.
“No, señorito. Instead, I’ve lost something.”
“What?” inquire both, in a breath.
“I don’t any longer see the tracks of that shod horse. I mean the big one we know nothing about. The pony’s are here, but as for the other, they’re missing.”
All three now join in a search for them, riding slowly along the trail, and in different directions backward and forward. But after some minutes thus passed, their search proves fruitless; no shod hoof-print, save that of the pony, to be seen.
“This accounts for it,” mutters Caspar, giving up the quest, and speaking as to himself.
“Accounts for what?” demands Cypriano, who has overheard him.
“The return tracks we saw on the other side of the camp ground. I mean the freshest of them, that went over the ford of the stream. Whoever rode that horse, whether red or white man, has parted from the Indians at their camping-place, no doubt after staying all night with them. Ha! there’s something at the back of all this; somebody behind Aguara and his Indians—that very somebody I’ve been guessing at. He—to a dead certainty.”
The last sentences are not spoken aloud; for as yet he has not confided his suspicions about Francia and Valdez to his youthful comrades.