“We should starve before we had got through the Mimbres.”
“Thar’s no water that way.”
“No, by gosh! not enough to make a drink for a sand-rat.”
“We must take our chances, then,” said Seguin. Here he paused thoughtfully, and with a gloomy expression of countenance.
“We must cross the trail,” he continued, “and go by the Prieto, or abandon the expedition.”
The word “Prieto,” in opposition to the phrase “abandon the expedition,” put the hunters to their wits’ end for invention, and plan after plan was proposed; all, however, ending in the probability—in fact, certainty—that if adopted, our trail would be discovered by the enemy, and followed up before we could escape back to the Del Norte. They were, therefore, one after another rejected.
During all this discussion, old Rube had not said a word. The earless trapper was sitting upon the prairie, squat on his hams, tracing out some lines with his bow, and apparently laying out the plan of a fortification.
“What are ye doin’, old hoss?” inquired one of his comrades.
“My hearin’ ain’t as good as ’twur afore I kim into this cussed country; but I thought I heerd some o’ ’ees say, jest now, we cudn’t cross the ’Pash trail ’ithout bein’ followed in two days. That’s a dod-rotted lie. It are.”
“How are ye goin’ to prove it, hoss?”