His smoky, grimy appearance was caused by the fact that in reaching them he had passed through a portion of the burned area.
He conducted them as quickly as possible down the cañon, and then out into the burned grassland, to the spot where his horse had tried to leap the deep gully, and had fallen into it.
The horse was found there, dead, for in its fall it had received injuries which killed it.
Clayton and the scouts, in gaining this spot, followed the gully from the cañon, thus remaining below the level of the grassland; a fact they counted on to keep them out of sight of any Blackfeet in the hills.
The young man showed them where he had fallen, and where he had searched, after his return to consciousness.
They took up the work where he had dropped it, giving to it their great skill.
There were no tracks visible at first in the burned grass; but when they had gone up the gully some distance they found an Indian trail. Two pairs of moccasins had come down from the hills to that point, where they had entered the gully.
As they had not climbed out of the gully on the other side, it was certain they had either gone back, or up or down it.
They had not gone back, and the scouts began to search the gully closely.
Then they found faint traces of the moccasin tracks on the hard soil, with the toes pointing down the gully.