The plan was feasible. There was but one objection that struck me; and I offered it for the consideration of our guide. The vallon as he had stated, was a cul-de-sac. Should we be tracked into it, there would be no chance of retreat: we should be taken as in a trap?
“Carrambo!” exclaimed the Mexican, in answer to my suggestion, “no fear of being tracked by such curs as they. They know nothing of that business. Not one of their whole fraternity could follow the trace of a buffalo in snow-time. Carrambo! No.”
“There is one who could,” I replied; “one who could follow a feebler trail than ours.”
“What! A rastreador among these Judios! Who, cavallero?”
“Their father!” I whispered the reply, so that neither of the girls should overhear it.
“Oh! true,” muttered the Mexican—“the father of the huntress—a hunter himself? Carrai! that’s like enough. But no matter. I can take you up the gorge in such fashion, that the most skilled rastreador of the prairies would never suspect we had passed through. Fortunately, the ground is favourable. The bottom of the little cañon is covered with cut rocks. The hoof will leave no mark upon these.”
“Remember that some of our horses are shod: the iron will betray us?”
“No, señor, we shall muffle them: nos vamos con los pies en medias!” (Let us travel in stockings!)
The idea was not new to me; and without further hesitation, we proceeded to carry it into execution. With pieces of blanket, and strips cut from our buckskin garments, we muffled the hoofs of our shod horses; and after following the waggon-trail, till we found a proper place for parting from it, we diverged in an oblique direction, towards the bluff that formed the northern boundary of the pass. Along this bluff we followed the guide in silence; and, after going for a quarter of a mile further, we had the satisfaction to see him turn to the left, and suddenly disappear from our sight—as if he had ridden into the face of the solid rock! We might have felt astonishment; but a dark chasm at the same instant came under our eyes, and we knew it was the ravine of which our guide had spoken. Without exchanging a word, we turned our horses’ heads, and rode up into the cleft. There was water running among the shingle, over which our steeds trampled; but it was shallow, and did not hinder their advance. It would further aid in concealing their tracks—should our pursuers succeed in tracing us from the main route. But we had little apprehension of their doing this: so carefully had we concealed our trail on separating from that of the waggons.
On reaching the little vallon, we no longer thought of danger; but, riding on to its upper end, dismounted, and made the best arrangements that circumstances would admit of for passing the remainder of the night. Wrapped in buffalo-robes, and a little apart from the rest of our party, the sisters reclined side by side under the canopy of a cotton-wood tree. Long while had it been since these beautiful forms had reposed so near each other; and the soft low murmur of their voices—heard above the sighing of the breeze, and the rippling sound of the mountain rills—admonished us that each was confiding to the other the sweet secret of her bosom!