nd I awoke my companions; the lawyer was
much ashamed of himself, and offered the humblest apologies, and as a
proof of his repentance, he poured on the ground the remainder of the
liquor in his flask. As soon as Gabriel and Roche were up, we searched
in the grass for the footprints, which we were not long in finding, and
which conducted us straight to the place where we had left our horses
loose and grazing. Then, for the first time, we perceived that the
horses which were shod, and which belonged to the three lawyers, had had
their shoes taken off, when in possession of the thieves the day before.

By the foot-prints, multiplied in every direction, it was evident that
the fugitives had attempted, though in vain, to seize upon some of our
horses. Following the foot-marks a little farther, brought us to a
small sandy creek, where the track was lost; and on the other side, to
our great astonishment, we saw plainly (at least the appearance seemed
to imply as much), that help had been at hand, and that the thieves had
escaped upon a tall American horse, ambling so lightly, that the four
shoes of the animal were comparatively but feebly marked on the ground.
It seemed, also, that the left foreleg of the animal had been at some
time hurt, for the stopping was not regular, being sometimes longer,
sometimes shorter, and now and then deviating two or three inches from
the line.

I thought immediately that we had been discovered by another roving
party of the brigands, and that they had gone to get a reinforcement to
overpower us, but upon a closer examination of the track, I came at once
to the solution of the mystery. I remarked that on the print left by
the shoes, the places upon which the head of the nails should have
pressed deeper, were, on the contrary, convex, the shoes were,
therefore, not fixed by nails; and my suspicions being awakened, I soon
spied upon a soft sandy spot, through which the track passed, that there
was something trailing from the left hind foot, and I satisfied myself
that this last slight mark was made by a piece of twine. A little
afterwards I remarked that on the softer parts of the ground, and two or
three inches behind and before the horse-shoe prints, were two circular
impressions, which I ascertained to be the heel and the toe-marks left
by a man's mocassins.

The mystery was revealed. We had never searched our prisoners, one of
whom must have had some of the shoes taken off the horses,