ds the spot where I
had left my companion. To my joy, he was still upon his feet, and
coming towards me. I could see blood dripping from his fingers, and a
crimson-stained rent in the sleeve of his buckskin shirt; but the
careless air with which he was regarding it, at once set my mind at
rest. He was smiling: there could not be much danger in the wound? It
proved so in effect. The bullet had passed through the muscular part of
the left forearm--only tearing the flesh. The wound did not even
require a surgeon. The haemorrhage once checked, the dressing which my
experience enabled me to give it was sufficient; and kept slung a few
days it would be certain to heal.

Unpleasant as was the incident, it seemed to affect my companion far
less than the words that preceded it. The allegorical allusions were
but two well understood; and though they added but little to the
knowledge already in his possession, that little produced a renewed
acerbity of spirit. It affected me equally with my comrade--perhaps
more. The figurative revelations of the Indian had put a still darker
phase on the affair. The letter of Lilian spoke only of a far country,
where gold was dug out of the sand.--California, of course. There was
no allusion to the Salt Lake--not one word about a migration to the
metropolis of the Mormons. Su-wa-nee's speech, on the other hand,
clearly alluded to this place as the goal of the squatter's journey!
How her information could have been obtained, or whence derived, was a
mystery; and, though loth to regard it as oracular, I could not divest
myself of a certain degree of conviction that her words were true. The
mind, ever prone to give assent to information conveyed by hints and
innuendos, too often magnifies this gipsy knowledge; and dwells not upon
the means by which it may have been acquired. For this reason gave I
weight to the warnings of the brown-skinned sibyl--though uttered only
to taunt, and too late to be of service.

The incident altered our design--only so far as to urge us to its more
rapid execution; and, without losing time, we turned our attention once
more to the pursuit of the fugitives. The first point to be ascertained
was the _time_ of their departure.

"If it wan't for the rain," said the hunter, "I ked a told it by thar
tracks. They must a made some hyar in the mud, while toatin' thar
things to the dug-out. The durned rain's washed 'em out--every footmark
o' 'em."

"But the