do better than
foller 'em up? Eh, Mark?"

"Wal! I don't think we can, ole boss," replied Redwood. "They passed
hyur yesterday, jest about noon--that is the thick o' the drove passed
then."

"How do you tell that?" inquired several.

"Oh, that's easy made out," replied the guide, evidently regarding the
question as a very simple one; "you see most o' these hyur tracks is a
day old, an' yet thur not two."

"And why not?"

"Why how could they be two," asked the guide in astonishment, "when it
rained yesterday before sun-up? Thur made since the rain, yu'll admit
that?"

We now remembered the rain, and acknowledged the truth of this
reasoning. The animals must have passed since it rained; but why not
immediately after, in the early morning? How could Redwood tell that it
was the hour of noon? How?

"Easy enough, comrades," replied he.

"Any greenhorn mout do that," added Ike. The rest, however, were
puzzled and waited the explanation.

"I tells this a way," continued the guide. "Ef the buffler had passed
by hyur, immediately after the rain, thar tracks wud a sunk deeper, and
thar wud a been more mud on the trail. As thar ain't no great slobber
about, ye see, I make my kalklations that the ground must a been well
dried afore they kim along, and after such a wet, it could not a been
afore noon at the least--so that's how I know the buffler passed at that
hour."

We were all interested in this craft of our guides, for without
consulting each other they had both arrived at the same conclusion by
the same process of mental logic. They had also determined several
other points about the buffalo--such as that they had not all gone
together, but in a straggling herd; that some had passed more rapidly
than the rest; that no hunters were after them; and that it was probable
they were not bound upon any distant migration, but only in search of
water; and the direction they had taken rendered this likely enough.
Indeed most of the great buffalo roads lead to watering-places, and they
have often been the means of conducting the thirsty traveller to the
welcome rivulet or spring, when otherwise he might have perished upon
the dry plain. Whether the buffalo are guided by some instinct towards
water, is a question not satisfactorily solved. Certain it is, that
their water paths often lead in the most direct route to streams and
ponds, of the existence of which they could have known nothing
previously. It is certa