Chapter Seventy Three.
Translating the “Sign.”
This discovery brought us to a pause. A consultation ensued, in which all took part; but as usual, the others listened to the opinions of the prairie-men, and especially to that of Rube.
The old trapper was inclined to sulk for some time, and acted as if he meant to withhold his advice. Nothing “miffed” him more than to have his word contradicted or his skill called in question. I have known him to be “out of sorts” for days, from having his prairie-craft doubted by some one whom he deemed less experienced than himself; and, indeed, there were few of his kind whose knowledge of the wilderness was at all comparable with his. He was not always in the right; but generally where his instincts failed, it wat, idle to try further. In the present case, the man who had thoughtlessly doubted him was one of the “greenest” of the party, but this only aggravated the matter in the eyes of Old Rube.
“Sich a fellur as you,” he said, giving a last dig to the offending ranger—“sich a fellur as you oughter keep yur head shet up: thet ur tongue o’ yourn s’ allers a gwine like a bull’s tail in fly-time. Wagh!”
As the man made no reply to this rather rough remonstrance, Rube’s “dander” soon smoothed down; and once more becoming cool, he turned his attention to the business of the hour.
That there had been Indians upon the ground was now an ascertained fact; the peculiar shoeing of the horses rendered it indubitable. Mexican horses, if shod at all, would have had a shoeing of iron—at least on their fore-feet. Wild mustangs would have had the hoof naked; while the tracks of Texan or American horses could have been easily told, either from the peculiar shoeing or the superior size of their hoofs. The horses that had galloped over that ground were neither wild, Texan, nor Mexican: Indian they must have been.
Although the one track first examined might have settled the point, it was a fact of too much importance to be left under the slightest doubt. The presence of Indians meant the presence of enemies—foes dire and deadly—and it was with something more than feelings of mere curiosity that my companions scrutinised the sign.