ht he focussed his new field glasses and
watched. From the knife-blade ridge up which he had spurred and
scrambled the whole country lay before him like a relief map, and in the
particular gash-like canyon where he had located the Stinging Lizard he
made out his furtive pursuers. The Indian was ahead, leaning over in his
saddle as he kept his eyes on the trail; and Lynch rode behind, a heavy
rifle beneath his knee, scanning the ridges to prevent a surprise. But
neither led a pack-horse and when Wunpost had looked his fill he put up
his glasses and smiled.

In the country where he was going there was no grass for those horses,
no browse that even an Indian pony could travel on; and if they wanted
to keep up with him and his grain-fed mules they would have to use quirt
and spurs. And the man who feeds his horse on buckskin alone is due to
walk back to camp. So reasoned John C. Calhoun from his cow-puncher
days, when he had tried out the weaknesses of horseflesh; and as he
returned to the grassy swale where his mules were hid he looked them
over proudly. His riding mule, Old Walker, was still in his prime, a
big-bellied animal with the long reach in its fore-shoulders which made
it by nature a fast walker; and his pack-mule, equally round-bellied to
store away food, was short-bodied as well so that he bore his pack
easily without any tendency to give down. He had been raised with Old
Walker and would follow him anywhere, without being dragged by a rope,
so that Wunpost had both hands for any emergency which might arise and
could keep his eyes on the trail.

And to think that these noble animals, big and black and beautifully
gaited, had been bought with Judson Eells' own money; while he, poor
fool, sent Lynch out after him on a miserable Indian cayuse. Wunpost's
road was always plain, for where he went they must follow, but at every
rocky point or granite-strewn flat they must circle and cut for his
trail. As he rode on now to the north he did not double and twist, for
the Indian would know the old trail; but the tracks he had left behind
him before he mounted to the ridge were as aimless as it was possible to
make them. They did not strike out boldly up some hogback or canyon but
at every fork and bend they turned this way and that, as if he were
hopelessly lost. And now as he rode on, unobserved by his pursuers, over
the well-worn Indian trail along the summit, Lynch and his tracker were
far behind, tracing his mule-tra