“Your little Piute pard must be a wonder,” said Dell.
“He is,” averred the scout. “He is not only immune from what is called ‘fear,’ but he has also a clever brain, and never fails to use it. I did not tell him to leave a clue as to where he had gone, or to leave a trail for us to follow; yet we have found the clue, and you can depend on it we will find some sort of a trail.”
“I’d like to know him,” said Dell. “Having trained with you so long, he has probably adopted some of your methods. Ah!” she finished, her eyes on the flinty earth of the arroyo’s bottom, “the Apache was mounted.”
“I had already discovered that,” said the scout, “but I’d like to have you tell me how you know the Apache was mounted. The soil is too hard for hoof-marks.”
The girl slipped from her saddle and pointed to a stone. The stone had been overturned, with the stained part that had been lying next the earth now uppermost.
“A horse kicked that stone over,” said she. “No moccasined Indian ever did it, traveling afoot.”
“Right,” said the scout; and, like Nomad’s, his first impressions of the girl began to change.
“Besides,” smiled the girl, getting back into her saddle, “near that heap of quartz the mesquit brush had been nibbled by a horse’s teeth.”
“That’s what proved to me that the Apache left a horse by the bushes when he climbed up the rise and unloosed the arrow. I see you’re wise to the trail. There’s a pleasure for me in reading such signs.”
“For me, too.”