A Queer Parcel.
The backwoodsman, after emerging from the thicket, proceeded as leisurely along the trail, as if he had the whole day before him, and no particular motive for making haste.
And yet, one closely scrutinising his features, might there have observed an expression of intense eagerness; that accorded with his nervous twitching in the saddle, and the sharp glances from time to time cast before him.
He scarce deigned to look upon the “sign” left by Calhoun. It he could read out of the corner of his eye. As to following it, the old mare could have done that without him!
It was not this knowledge that caused him to hang back; for he would have preferred keeping Calhoun in sight. But by doing this, the latter might see him; and so frustrate the end he desired to attain.
This end was of more importance than any acts that might occur between; and, to make himself acquainted with the latter, Zeb Stump trusted to the craft of his intellect, rather than the skill of his senses.
Advancing slowly and with caution—but with that constancy that ensures good speed—he arrived at length on the spot where the mirage had made itself manifest to Calhoun.
Zeb saw nothing of this. It was gone; and the sky stretched down to the prairie—the blue meeting the green in a straight unbroken line.
He saw, however, what excited him almost as much as the spectre would have done: two sets of horse-tracks going together—those that went after being the hoof-marks of Calhoun’s new horse—of which Zeb had already taken the measure.
About the tracks underneath he had no conjecture—at least as regarded their identification. These he knew, as well as if his own mare had made them.