I saw that he held in his hand the noose of the lazo which he had taken from my ankles, and I explained the mystery of how it had “kum cut”. This seemed to raise me still higher in the hunter’s esteem. Turning to one of the riflemen, an old hunter like himself, he whispered—I overheard him:
“I’ll tell yer what it is, Nat: he kin whip his weight in wild-cats or grizzly b’ars any day in the year—he kin, or my name ain’t Bob Linkin.”
Saying this, he stepped forward on the cliff and looked over; and then he examined the tree, and then the piece of lazo, and then the tree again, and then he commenced dropping pebbles down, as if he was determined to measure every object, and fix it in his memory with a proper distinctness.
Twing and the others had now dismounted. As I turned towards them Clayley was taking a pull at the major’s pewter—and a good long pull, too. I followed the lieutenant’s example, and felt the better for it.
“But how did you find us, Major?”
“This little soldier,” said he, pointing to Jack, “brought us to the rancho where you were taken. From there we easily tracked you to a large hacienda.”
“Ha! you routed the guerilla, then?”
“Routed the guerilla! We saw no guerilla.”
“What! at the hacienda?”
“Peons and women; nothing more. Yes, there was, too—what am I thinking about? There was a party there that routed us; Thornley and Hillis here have both been wounded, and are not likely to recover—poor fellows!”