s of what
has happened to Dupre's party, up to the time of his separating from it;
first making their minds easy by assuring them it was then safe.

They were delayed a long time in getting upon the trail of the robbers,
from these having taken a bye-path leading along the base of the bluff.
At length having found the route of their retreat, they followed it over
the lower ford, and there saw sign to convince them that the Indians--
still supposing them such--had gone on across the bottom, and in all
probability up the bluff beyond--thus identifying them with the band
which the hunters had seen and tracked down. Indeed no one doubted
this, nor could. But, while the scouters were examining the return
tracks, they came upon others less intelligible--in short, perplexing.
There were the hoof-marks of four horses and a mule--all shod; first
seen upon a side trace leading from the main ford road. Striking into
and following it for a few hundred yards, they came upon a place where
men had encamped and stayed for some time--perhaps slept. The grass
bent down showed where their bodies had been astretch. And these men
must have been white. Fragments of biscuit, with other debris of
eatables, not known to Indians, were evidence of this.

Returning from the abandoned bivouac, with the intention to ride
straight back to the Mission, the scouters came upon another side trace
leading out on the opposite side of the ford road, and up the river. On
this they again saw the tracks of the shod horses and mule; among them
the foot-prints of a large dog.

Taking this second trace it conducted them to a glade, with a grand
tree, a live-oak, standing in its centre. The sign told of the party
having stopped there also. While occupied in examining their traces,
and much mystified by them, they picked up an article, which, instead of
making matters clearer, tended to mystify them more--a wig! Of all
things in the world this in such a place!

Still, not so strange either, seeing it was the counterfeit of an Indian
_chevelure_--the hair long and black, taken from the tail of a horse.

For all, it had never belonged to, or covered, a red man's skull--since
it was that worn by Bosley, and torn from his head when Woodley and
Heywood were stripping him for examination.

The scouters, of course, could not know of this; and, while inspecting
the queer waif, wondering what it could mean, two others were taken up:
one a sprig of cypress, t