Chapter Seventy Nine.
An Untiring Tracker.
Zeb was not long in arriving at the spot where he had “hitched” his mare. The topography of the chapparal was familiar to him; and he crossed it by a less circuitous route than that taken by the cripple.
He once more threw himself upon the trail of the broken shoe, in full belief that it would fetch out not a hundred miles from Casa del Corvo.
It led him along a road running almost direct from one of the crossings of the Rio Grande to Fort Inge. The road was a half-mile in width—a thing not uncommon in Texas, where every traveller selects his own path, alone looking to the general direction.
Along one edge of it had gone the horse with the damaged shoe.
Not all the way to Fort Inge. When within four or five miles of the post, the trail struck off from the road, at an angle of just such degree as followed in a straight line would bring out by Poindexter’s plantation. So confident was Zeb of this, that he scarce deigned to keep his eye upon the ground; but rode forwards, as if a finger-post was constantly by his side.
He had long before given up following the trail afoot. Despite his professed contempt for “horse-fixings”—as he called riding—he had no objection to finish his journey in the saddle—fashed as he now was with the fatigue of protracted trailing over prairie and through chapparal. Now and then only did he cast a glance upon the ground—less to assure himself he was on the track of the broken shoe, than to notice whether something else might not be learnt from the sign, besides its mere direction.