Little Cayuse galloped to the Five Points, and then along the dusty thoroughfare known as Grand Avenue. His sharp eyes were always straight ahead, keenly scrutinizing the road for some sign of Bernritter.
The boy was several miles down the Black Cañon trail before he glimpsed the man he was looking for. Although Cayuse could see only Bernritter’s back, yet the form of the man, and the clothes he wore, were indelibly impressed upon the little Indian’s mind, and he knew he could not be mistaken.
From that point he followed slowly and cautiously, keeping his distance and hugging the trail-side, and the cottonwood-trees.
Yet Bernritter did not seem to have the least idea he was being followed. Not once, so far as Cayuse could discover, did he look back.
Quite probably Bernritter was deep in his nefarious plans for the next day, and had no time to watch his back trail. Be that as it might, Cayuse found the trailing easy; and it grew easier when the sun went down and the evening shadows began to lengthen.
At sunset Bernritter had crossed the Arizona canal, eighteen miles out of Phœnix. From there on the trail led across several miles of flat desert, and directly into the scarred and cactus-covered hills.
The twilight favored the boy while crossing the level ground, and when they drew into the hill valleys he needed no favoring of any sort.
The Indian instinct, born in him, made him as wary as a fox, and as quick and certain in his movements as a wildcat.
Cutting pieces from his riding-blanket, he tied them about his pinto’s hoofs, thus muffling the noise of his own travel, and bringing out distinctly the ringing fall of the hoofs ahead.
His trailing, through the gloomy gullies, was almost entirely by ear alone. Whether Bernritter was galloping, or trotting, or walking he knew at any moment, and he kept a distance that gave the hoof-beats in the lead the same volume of sound.