g, trotted into camp and
laid a horseshoe in Henry's lap. The lad took it up, and exclaimed:

"One of Chiquita's shoes!--a left hind shoe!"

"How do you know?" I asked.

"Private Sattler always shaped the heel of the left shoe like this, to
correct a fault in her gait."

"May I look at the shoe, sergeant?" asked Corporal Duffey,
approaching from the group of men near the guard's fire. "Shoes are
like hand-writing--no two blacksmiths make them alike. I am a
blacksmith by trade, and know all the shoes made by the smiths of our
regiment. This," examining it, "is one of Sattler's. He put a
side-weight on it, and here is the bevel-mark of his hammer."

"Then our ponies have certainly passed here, and Vic was on their
trail when we saw her coming from the Tanks," remarked Frank; "but
there could have been no scent after so long a time."

"Oh, she knows Sancho's and Chiquita's tracks," asseverated Henry;
"she knows their halters, bridles, and will bring them when told to,
without mistake."

The sentinel awakened us next morning at four o'clock, and informed us
that the Indians had left two hours before. The animals were again
driven to the Tanks, the vessels and canteens filled, and at six
o'clock we were on the road. Nearly all our water was used in the
preparation of breakfast, except that in the canteens. It would have
been better if we had made a third trip to the cisterns and refilled
our coffee-pot and camp-kettles; but the delay necessary to do it, and
the assurance that there was water at Hole-in-the-Plain, determined me
to go on at once. The weather was a repetition of that of the previous
day--hot and windless.

The road proved generally smooth, but there were occasional long
stretches over which it was impossible to drive faster than a walk.
About four in the afternoon we reached Hole-in-the-Plain, and found
nothing but a few hundred square yards of thin mud. The fierce rays of
the sun had nearly evaporated every vestige of the recent rainfall,
and in twenty-four hours more the mud would be baked earth.

Vic, consumed with thirst and suffering in the extreme heat, waded
into the mud and rolled in it until she was the color of a fresh
adobe, and was, in consequence, made to ride thereafter in disgrace on
the driver's foot-board.

We had intended to pass the night at the Hole, but want of water
compelled us to move on. Very gloomy and doubtful of the outcome, we
left the Hole-in-the-Plain. We were toiling