n a hunt where the scent is hot--the young dogs
dashing forward without check, the old ones alike eager, but moving with
more circumspection.

Between them and the settlers there is the same earnestness of purpose,
though stimulated by resentment altogether different. The latter only
think of rescuing their dear ones, while the former are stirred by
soldier pride and the instinctive antagonism which a Texan Ranger feels
for a Tenawa. Many of them have old scores to settle with the Horned
Lizard, and more than one longs to send a bullet through his heart.

But, despite the general reckless impatience to proceed, there are some
who counsel caution. Chief among those is a man named Cully, a thin
wiry sexagenarian, who looks as if he had been at least half a century
upon the prairies. All over buckskin, fitting tight to his body,
without tag or tail, he is not one of the enrolled Rangers, though
engaged to act as their guide. In this capacity he exercises an
influence over the pursuers almost equalling that of their leader, the
Ranger captain, who, with a group gathered around, is now questioning
the guide as to the next move to be made.

"They can't be very far off now," replies Cully, in answer to the
captain's interrogatory. "All the signs show they passed this hyar
point a good hour arter sun-up. The dew war off the grass as they druv
over it, else the blades 'ud a been pressed flatter down. Besides,
there's the dead hoss they've left ahint. Ye see some o' 'em's cut out
his tongue an' tuk it along for a tit-bit at thar next campin' place.
Now, as the blood that kim out o' the animal's mouth ain't been long
cruddled up, thet shows to a sartinty they can't be far forrad. I
reck'n I know the adzact spot whar they're squatted."

"Where?"

"Peecawn creek. There they'll get good water for thar stock, an' the
shade o' trees to rest unner; the which last they'll take to in this
hottish spell o' sun."

"If they're upon the Pecan," puts in a third speaker, a tall, lathy
individual, in a green blanket coat, badly faded, "and anywhere near its
mouth, we can't be more than five miles from them. I know this part of
the country well. I passed through it last year along with the Santa Fe
expedition."

"Only five miles!" exclaims another man, whose dress bespeaks a planter
of respectability, while his woe-begone countenance proclaims him to be
one of the bereaved. "Oh, gentlemen I surely our horses are now rested