Conover took no part in the conversation, but kept his horse back, and apparently gave scant attention to the tracks in the sand.
But it was the subject of lively discussion, as the trailers continued on their way.
Finding the spot where the trail of the woman—they were almost sure it was a woman—entered the main beaten trail, they kept a close watch on each side to see when the pony tracks left it.
When they found them they were much nearer the dreaded Cumbres Mountains, and night was at hand.
They stopped, on finding a water hole, and went into camp. Nothing was to be accomplished by hastening on in the darkness. In doing that, they might miss the trail altogether, though it seemed now to point straight to the notch before them, which for some time they had seen, and which appeared to lead directly toward the heart of the Cumbres. It was the mountain notch which Tom Conover had stared at so hard and often when he was shooting the queen of hearts into tatters before the mesquite bush just outside the town of Skyline.
Tom Conover was so silent that evening round the hidden camp fire that it was noticeable.
Nomad spoke of it, in an aside, to Wild Bill:
“Thar’s two things, Pard Hickok, that don’t speak until they’re ready ter strike—rattlesnakes an’ Injuns; an’ now I’m addin’ a third—this hyar wart hog what w’ars that three-cornered red nick in his forrud. Ef you’ll take a look at it by the flickin’ o’ that match which Buffler is recklessly usin’ this minute you’ll see that it’s redder’n common, like ther wattles of a turkey cock when it’s thinkin’ mischief.”
“You’ve got as healthy an imagination as a kid schoolboy,” said Wild Bill, with his light laugh. “You’ll soon be finding a suspicious circumstance in the fact that he eats just like an ordinary man.”
“But he don’t,” Nomad persisted; “he ain’t et a thing this evenin’, though thar war a lot o’ good chuck in thet war bag which Buffler opened up fer us. Thar’s somethin’ on his mind.”