"Not till you learn to read sign closer than you do. An outdoor education is like a school-book one. You can't learn it in a day or a week or a year."
"You're no Methuselah. There's still hope for me."
"Lots o' hope. It's mostly keepin' yore eyes open an' yore brain workin'. I'm still only in the A B C class, but a fellow learns somethin' every day if he's that kind."
"If it's a matter of brains, why do Indians make the best trailers? You wouldn't say their brains are as good as a white man's, would you?"
"No; an' I'd say there's nothin' on earth an Indian can do as well as a white man, given the same chance to learn it. Indians know the outdoors because they have to know it to live. The desert's no prodigal mother. Her sons have to rustle right smart to keep their tummies satisfied. If the 'Paches and the Kiowas didn't know how to cut sign an' read it, how to hunt an' fish an' follow a trail, they'd all be in their happy huntin' grounds long ago. They're what old Nature has made 'em. But I'll tell you this. When a white man gives his mind to it he understands the life of the plains better than any Indian does. His brains are better, an' he goes back an' looks for causes. The best trailers in the world are whites, not redskins."
"I didn't know that," Arthur said.
"Ask any old-timer if it ain't so."
They were eating breakfast when the light on the horizon announced a new day on the way. Already this light was saturating the atmosphere and dissolving shadows. The vegetation of the plains, the wave rolls of the land, the distant horizon line, became more distinct. By the time the sun pushed into sight the Rangers were in the saddle.
Roberts led through the polecat brush to the summit of a little mesa which overlooked the gulch. Along the edge of the ravine he rode, preferring the bluff to the sandy wash below because the ground was less likely to tell the Dinsmores a story of two travelers riding up Box Cañon. At the head of the gorge a faint trail dipped to the left. Painted on a rock was a sign that Jack had seen before.
THIS IS PETE DINSMORE'S ROAD—
TAKE ANOTHER.