“If you think so, then I don’t believe you need trouble yourself about the dog. If he lives twenty minutes after the stab I gave him, he’s a tough brute, that’s all. You find the güero, I promise you’ll find no dog with him.”
“Hope so, boy Pepe—try anyhow. Come!” Saying this, the yellow hunter straddled his horse, and followed by the zambo and the dogs commenced moving down the rocky channel of the ravine.
Chapter Fifty Nine.
Having arrived at the point where the horseman had been last seen, the mulatto dismounted, and called up the bloodhound. He addressed some words to the dog, and by a sign set him on the trail. The animal understood what was wanted, and, laying his nose to the ground, ran forward silently. The hunter again climbed back to his saddle, and both he and his companion spurred their horses so as to keep pace with the bloodhound.
This was easy enough, though the moon was no longer seen. The colour of the dog—a very light red—rendered him conspicuous against the dark greensward, and there were neither bushes nor long grass to hide him. Moreover, by the instruction of his master, he moved slowly along the trail—although the scent was still fresh, and he could have gone at a much faster rate. He had been trained to track slowly in the night, and also to be silent about it, so that the “bay” peculiar to his race was not heard.
It was two hours, full time, before they came in sight of the grove where the cibolero had halted. The moment the mulatto saw the timber, he pointed to it, muttering to his companion:—
“See, boy Pepe! dog make for island—see! Bet onza güero there. Dam! there sure!”
When they had arrived within five or six hundred yards of the grove—it was still but dimly visible under the darkening sky—the yellow hunter called the dog off the trail, and ordered him to keep behind. He knew that the horseman must have passed either into the grove or close beside it. In either case his trail could be easily taken up again. If—as the mulatto from his excited manner evidently believed—their victim was still in the grove, then the dog’s sagacity was no longer needed. The time was come for them to take other measures.