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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
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