Had wolves again attacked him, or some other enemy? No; nor one nor other. It was a green prairie over which he had gone, a smooth sward of mezquite-grass; but there were spots where the growth was thin—patches nearly bare—and these were softened by the rain. Even the light paw of a wolf would have impressed itself in such places, sufficiently to be detected by the lynx-eyed men of the plains. The horse had passed since the rain had ceased falling. No wolf, or other animal, had been after him.
Perhaps he had taken a start of himself, freshly affrighted at the novel mode in which he was ridden—still under excitement from the rough usage he had received, and from which he had not yet cooled down—perhaps the barbed points of the cohetes rankled in his flesh, acting like spurs; perhaps some distant sound had led him to fancy the hooting mob, or the howling wolves, still coming at his heels; perhaps—
An exclamation from the trackers, who were riding in the advance, put an end to these conjectures. Both had pulled up, and were pointing to the ground. No words were spoken—none needed. We all read with our eyes an explanation of the renewed gallop.
Directly in front of us, the sward was cut and scored by numerous tracks. Not four, but four hundred hoof-prints were indented in the turf—all of them fresh as the trail we were following—and amidst these the tracks of the steed, becoming intermingled, were lost to our view.
“A drove of wild horses,” pronounced the guides at a glance.
They were the tracks of unshod hoofs, though that would scarcely have proved them wild. An Indian troop might have ridden past without leaving any other sign; but these horses had not been mounted, as the trappers confidently alleged; and among them were the hoof-marks of foals and half-grown colts, which proved the drove to be a caballada of mustangs.
At the point where we first struck their tracks they had been going in full speed, and the trail of the steed converged until it closed with theirs at an acute angle.
“Ye-es,” drawled Rube, “I see how ’tis. They’ve been skeeart at the awkurd look o’ the hoss, an hev put off. See! thur’s his tracks on the top o’ all o’ theirn: he’s been runnin’ arter ’em. Thur!” continued the tracker, as we advanced—“thur he hez overtuk some o’ ’em. See! thur! the vamints hev scattered right an left! Hyur agin, they’ve galliped thegither, some ahint, an some afore him. Wagh! I guess they know him now, an ain’t any more afeerd o’ him. See thur! he’s in the thick o’ the drove.”
Involuntarily I raised my eyes, fancying from these words that the horses were in sight; but no; the speaker was riding forward, leaning over in his saddle, with looks fixed upon the ground. All that he had spoken he had been reading from the surface of the prairie—from hieroglyphics to me unintelligible, but to him more easily interpreted than a page of the printed book.
I knew that what he was saying was true. The steed had galloped after a drove of wild horses; he had overtaken them; and at the point where we now were, had been passing along in their midst!