Moreover, his appearance seemed to have been the signal for a new arrangement in the position of the horses, for our ponies had here taken the lead, while Yetmore’s horse came treading in their tracks. Moreover, again, twenty yards farther on, the horses had all broken into a gallop. What did it mean?
“Well, this is a puzzler!” exclaimed Joe, taking off his hat and rumpling his hair, as his habit was in such circumstances. “How do you figure it out, Phil?”
“Why,” said I. “I’ll tell you what I think. Yetmore has caught sight of the horses strolling down the road and has followed them, keeping away from the road himself for fear they should see him and take alarm. Dodging through the scrub-oak and cutting across corners, he has come near enough to them to speak to his own horse; the horse has stopped and Yetmore has caught him. That was where his tracks first showed in the road. Then he has jumped upon his horse and galloped after our ponies, which appear to have bolted.”
“That sounds reasonable,” Joe assented; “and in that case he’ll head them and drive them back; so we may as well walk up to the cabin again and wait for him.”
To this I agreed, and we therefore turned round and retraced our steps.
“There’s only one thing about this that I can’t understand,” remarked Joe, as we trudged up the hill, “and that is about the halters—why they leave no trail. That does beat me.”
“Yes, that is certainly a queer thing; unless they managed to scrape them off against the trees before they took to the road. In that case, though, we ought to have found them; and anyhow it is hard to believe that all three horses should have done the same thing.”
We found Tom very busy packing up when we reached the cabin, and on our telling him the result of our horse-hunt he merely nodded, saying, “Well, they’ll be back soon, I suppose, and then I’ll ride down with you.”
“Why, are you going to quit, Tom?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied. “Your father limited me to one more hole, you remember, and if I know him he’ll stick to it; and as to working any longer for Yetmore, no thank you; I’ve had enough of it.”