On the Trail.
Zeb Stump stayed but a short while on the spot, where he had discovered the hoof-print with the broken shoe.
Six seconds sufficed for its identification; after which he rose to his feet, and continued along the trail of the horse that had made it.
He did not re-mount, but strode forward on foot; the old mare, obedient to a signal he had given her, keeping at a respectful distance behind him.
For more than a mile he moved on in this original fashion—now slowly, as the trail became indistinct—quickening his pace where the print of the imperfect shoe could be seen without difficulty.
Like an archaeologist engaged upon a tablet of hieroglyphic history, long entombed beneath the ruins of a lost metropolis—whose characters appear grotesque to all except himself—so was it with Zeb Stump, as he strode on, translating the “sign” of the prairie.
Absorbed in the act, and the conjectures that accompanied it, he had no eyes for aught else. He glanced neither to the green savannah that stretched inimitably around, nor to the blue sky that spread specklessly above him. Alone to the turf beneath his feet was his eye and attention directed.
A sound—not a sight—startled him from his all-engrossing occupation. It was the report of a rifle; but so distant, as to appear but the detonation of a percussion-cap that had missed fire.
Instinctively he stopped; at the same time raising his eyes, but without unbending his body.
With a quick glance the horizon was swept, along the half dozen points whence the sound should have proceeded.