“I am but ill deserving thanks,” was his rejoinder, “thus to leave you with a chance of losing your way. But, as I’ve told you, my time is measured.”
The despatch-bearer consulted his watch—as though not a little reluctant to travel alone.
“You are very kind, sir,” said Poindexter; “but with the directions you have given us, I think we shall be able to manage. The sun will surely show us—”
“No: now I look at the sky, it will not. There are clouds looming up on the north. In an hour, the sun may be obscured—at all events, before you can get within sight of the cypress. It will not do. Stay!” he continued, after a reflective pause, “I have a better plan still: follow the trail of my lazo!”
While speaking, he had lifted the coiled rope from his saddlebow, and flung the loose end to the earth—the other being secured to a ring in the pommel. Then raising his hat in graceful salutation—more than half directed towards the travelling carriage—he gave the spur to his steed; and once more bounded off over the prairie.
The lazo, lengthening out, tightened over the hips of his horse; and, dragging a dozen yards behind, left a line upon the cinereous surface—as if some slender serpent had been making its passage across the plain.
“An exceedingly curious fellow!” remarked the planter, as they stood gazing after the horseman, fast becoming hidden behind a cloud of sable dust. “I ought to have asked him his name?”
“An exceedingly conceited fellow, I should say,” muttered Calhoun; who had not failed to notice the glance sent by the stranger in the direction of the carriole, nor that which had challenged it. “As to his name, I don’t think it matters much. It mightn’t be his own he would give you. Texas is full of such swells, who take new names when they get here—by way of improvement, if for no better reason.”
“Come, cousin Cash,” protested young Poindexter; “you are unjust to the stranger. He appears to be educated—in fact, a gentleman—worthy of bearing the best of names, I should say.”
“A gentleman! Deuced unlikely: rigged out in that fanfaron fashion. I never saw a man yet, that took to a Mexican dress, who wasn’t a Jack. He’s one, I’ll be bound.”