“My horse!” cried he; “my horse Hickory, by Gosh!”
“Your horse?”
“May I never see Kaintuck if it ain’t.”
“Yur sure o’ it, ole hoss? yur sure it’s yurn?”
“Sure as shootin’; I shod him myself. I kid tell that ere track on a dry sand-bar. I know every nail thar; I druv ’em wi’ my own hand—it’s him sartin.”
“Wheeo-o!” whistled Rube in his significant way, “thet makes things a leetle plainer, I reck’n; an so I thort all along—an so I thort—ye-es—so I thort. The durned rennygade niggur!” he added with angry emphasis, “I know’d we dud wrong to let ’im go; we oughter served ’im as I perposed; we oughter cut his durnation throat, an scalped ’im the minnut we tuk ’im: cuss the luck thet we didn’t! Wagh!”
Rube’s words needed no interpretation. We knew whose throat he would have cut—that of the Indianised Mexican taken at the mesa; and I remembered that at the time of his capture such had been Rube’s advice, overruled, of course, by the more merciful of his comrades. The trapper had assigned some reason: he knew something of the man’s history.
He now repeated his reasons:
“He ur a true rennygade,” said he; “an thur ain’t on all the parairas a wusser enemy to whites than thet ur—more partiklurly to Texan whites. He wur at the massacree o’ Wilson’s family on the clur fork o’ the Brazos, an wur conspik’us in the skrimmige: a’ more too—it ur thort he toated off one o’ Wilson’s gurls, an made a squaw o’ her, for he’s mighty given thet way I’ve heern. Wagh! he ur wuss than a Injun, for the reezun thet he unerstans the ways o’ the whites. I never know’d sich a foolitch thing as ter let ’im git clur. ’Ee may thank yur luck, Mister Stannafeel, thet he didn’t take yur har at the same time when he tuk yur hoss. Wagh! thet ye may!”
It was Stanfield’s horse that had bee a stolen by the renegade, and the tracks now identified by the ranger were those of that animal—no doubt with the freebooter upon his back.