Sure enough the steed had halted there, or, at all events, ceased from his wild gallop. He had approached the mound in a walk, as the tracks testified; but how, and in what direction, had he gone thence? His hoof-prints no longer appeared. He had passed over the shingle, that covered the plain to a distance of many yards from the base of the cliff, and no track could be found beyond!
Several times we went around the mesa, carrying our candles everywhere. We saw skeletons of men and horses, with skulls detached, fragments of dresses, and pieces of broken armour—souvenirs of our late skirmish. We looked into our little fortress, and gazed upon the rock that had sheltered us; we glanced up the gorge where we had climbed, and beheld the rope by which we had descended still hanging in its place: all these we saw, but no further traces of the steed!
Round and round we went, back and forward, over the stony shingle, and along its outer edge, but still without coming upon the tracks. Whither could the horse have gone!
Perhaps, with a better light, we might have found the trail; but for a long hour we searched, without striking upon any sign of it. Perhaps we might still have found it, even with our waxen torches, but for an incident that not only interrupted our search, but filled us with fresh apprehension, and almost stifled our hopes of success.
The interruption did not come unexpected. The clouds had for some time given ample warning. The big solitary drops that at intervals fell with plashing noise upon the rocks, were but the avant-couriers of one of the great rainstorms of the prairie, when water descends as if from a shower-bath. We knew from the signs that such a storm was nigh; and while casting around to recover the trail, it came down in all its fury.
Almost in an instant our lights were extinguished, and our bootless search brought to a termination.
We drew up under the rocks, and stood side by side in sullen silence. Even the elements seemed against me. In my heart’s bitterness, I cursed them.