“By the sign, major; by the sign. It’s simple enough. I see the shoes of both horses lapping over each other a score of times; and in such a way that shows they must have been thegither—the animals, it might be, restless and movin’ about. As for the time, they’ve taken long enough to smoke a cigar apiece—close to the teeth too. Here are the stumps; not enough left to fill a fellow’s pipe.”
The tracker, stooping as he spoke, picked up a brace of cigar stumps, and handed them to the major.
“By the same token,” he continued, “I conclude that the two horsemen, whoever they were, while under this tree could not have had any very hostile feelins, the one to the tother. Men don’t smoke in company with the design of cutting each other’s throats, or blowing out one another’s brains, the instant afterwards. The trouble between them must have come on after the cigars were smoked out. That it did come there can be no doubt. As sure, major, as you’re sittin’ in your saddle, one of them has wiped out the other. I can only guess which has been wiped out, by the errand we’re on. Poor Mr Poindexter will niver more see his son alive.”
“’Tis very mysterious,” remarked the major.
“It is, by jingo!”
“And the body, too; where can it be?”
“That’s what purplexes me most of all. If ’t had been Indyins, I wouldn’t a thought much o’ its being missin’. They might a carried the man off wi them to make a target of him, if only wounded; and if dead, to eat him, maybe. But there’s been no Indyins here—not a redskin. Take my word for it, major, one o’ the two men who rid these horses has wiped out the other; and sartinly he have wiped him out in the litterlest sense o’ the word. What he’s done wi’ the body beats me; and perhaps only hisself can tell.”
“Most strange!” exclaimed the major, pronouncing the words with emphasis—“most mysterious!”
“It’s possible we may yet unravel some o’ the mystery,” pursued Spangler. “We must follow up the tracks of the horses, after they started from this—that is, from where the deed was done. We may make something out of that. There’s nothing more to be learnt here. We may as well go back, major. Am I to tell him?”
“Mr Poindexter, you mean?”