Part 106 (2/2)

Though the others were of an after time, and often destroyed the traces he was most anxious to examine, he had no difficulty in identifying the latter. As he would have himself said, any greenhorn could do that.

The young planter's horse had gone over the ground at a gallop. The trackers had ridden slowly.

As far as Zeb Stump could perceive, the latter had made neither halt nor deviation. The former had.

It was about three-quarters of a mile from the edge of the venue.

It was not a halt the galloping horse had made, but only a slight departure from his direct course; as if something he had seen--wolf, jaguar, cougar, or other beast of prey--had caused him to shy.

Beyond he had continued his career; rapid and reckless as ever.

Beyond the party along with Spangler had proceeded--without staying to inquire why the horse had s.h.i.+ed from his track.

Zeb Stump was more inquisitive, and paused upon this spot.

It was a sterile tract, without herbage, and covered with s.h.i.+ngle and sand. A huge tree overshadowed it, with limbs extending horizontally.

One of these ran transversely to the path over which the horses had pa.s.sed--so low that a horseman, to shun contact with it, would have to lower his head. At this branch Zeb Stump stood gazing. He observed an abrasion upon the bark; that, though very slight, must have been caused by contact with some substance, as hard, if not sounder, than itself.

”Thet's been done by the skull o' a human critter,” reasoned he--”a human critter, that must a been on the back o' a hoss--this side the branch, an off on the t'other. No livin' man ked a stud sech a cullizyun as thet, an kep his seat i' the seddle.

”Hooraw!” he triumphantly exclaimed, after a cursory examination of the ground underneath the tree. ”I thort so. Thur's the impreshun o' the throwed rider. An' thur's whar he hez creeped away. Now I've got a explication o' thet big b.u.mp as hez been puzzlin' me. I know'd it wan't did by the claws o' any varmint; an it didn't look like the blow eyther o' a stone or a stick. Thet ere's the stick that hez gi'n it.”

With an elastic step--his countenance radiant of triumph--the old hunter strode away from the tree, no longer upon the cattle path, but that taken by the man who had been so violently dismounted.

To one unaccustomed to the chapparal, he might have appeared going without a guide, and upon a path never before pressed by human foot.

A portion of it perhaps had not. But Zeb was conducted by signs which, although obscure to the ordinary eye, were to him intelligible as the painted lettering upon a finger-post. The branch contorted to afford pa.s.sage for a human form--the displaced tendrils of a creeping plant-- the scratched surface of the earth--all told that a man had pa.s.sed that way. The sign signified more--that the man was disabled--had been crawling--a cripple!

Zeb Stump continued on, till he had traced this cripple to the banks of a running stream.

It was not necessary for him to go further. He had made one more splice of the broken thread. Another, and his clue would be complete!

CHAPTER SEVENTY EIGHT.

A HORSE-SWOP.

With an oath, a sullen look, and a brow black as disappointment could make it, Calhoun turned away from the edge of the chalk prairie, where he had lost the traces of the Headless Horseman.

”No use following further! No knowing where he's gone now! No hope of finding him except by a _fluke_! If I go back to the creek I might see him again; but unless I get within range, it'll end as it's done before.

The mustang stallion won't let me come near him--as if the brute knows what I'm wanting!

”He's even cunninger than the wild sort--trained to it, I suppose, by the mustanger himself. One fair shot--if I could only get that, I'd settle his courses.

”There appears no chance of stealing upon him; and as to riding him down, it can't be done with a slow mule like this.

”The sorrel's not much better as to speed, though he beats this brute in bottom. I'll try him to-morrow, with the new shoe.

”If I could only get hold of something that's fast enough to overtake the mustang! I'd put down handsomely for a horse that could do it.

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