be
detected by the lynx-eyed men of the plains. The horse had passed since
the rain had ceased falling. No wolf, or other animal, had been after
him.

Perhaps he had taken a start of himself, freshly affrighted at the novel
mode in which he was ridden--still under excitement from the rough usage
he had received, and from which he had not yet cooled down--perhaps the
barbed points of the cohetes rankled in his flesh, acting like spurs;
perhaps some distant sound had led him to fancy the hooting mob, or the
howling wolves, still coming at his heels; perhaps--

An exclamation from the trackers, who were riding in the advance, put an
end to these conjectures. Both had pulled up, and were pointing to the
ground. No words were spoken--none needed. We all read with our eyes
an explanation of the renewed gallop.

Directly in front of us, the sward was cut and scored by numerous
tracks. Not four, but four hundred hoof-prints were indented in the
turf--all of them fresh as the trail we were following--and amidst these
the tracks of the steed, becoming intermingled, were lost to our view.

"A drove of wild horses," pronounced the guides at a glance.

They were the tracks of unshod hoofs, though that would scarcely have
proved them wild. An Indian troop might have ridden past without
leaving any other sign; but these horses had not been mounted, as the
trappers confidently alleged; and among them were the hoof-marks of
foals and half-grown colts, which proved the drove to be a _caballada_
of mustangs.

At the point where we first struck their tracks they had been going in
full speed, and the trail of the steed converged until it closed with
theirs at an acute angle.

"Ye-es," drawled Rube, "I see how 'tis. They've been skeeart at the
awkurd look o' the hoss, an hev put off. See! thur's his tracks on the
top o' all o' theirn: he's been runnin' arter 'em. Thur!" continued the
tracker, as we advanced--"thur he hez overtuk some o' 'em. See! thur!
the vamints hev scattered right an left! Hyur agin, they've galliped
thegither, some ahint, an some afore him. Wagh! I guess they know him
now, an ain't any more afeerd o' him. See thur! he's in the thick o'
the drove."

Involuntarily I raised my eyes, fancying from these words that the
horses were in sight; but no; the speaker was riding forward, leaning
over in his saddle, with looks fixed upon the ground. All that he had
spoken he had been reading from the surface