Part 53 (1/2)

”Be at your ease, my friend, about that,” the general said; ”we have too great an interest in not quitting you. _Canarios!_ what would become of us alone, lost in this confounded desert?”

”Come, come, something tells me that we shall succeed,” Valentine said gaily, ”so we will have courage.”

”May heaven grant you are not mistaken, my friend,” Don Miguel said sadly. ”My poor child!”

”We will deliver her. I have followed a more difficult trail before now.”

With these consolatory words, the two Indians and the hunter set out.

Instead of taking Indian file, as ordinarily adopted on the prairie, and marching one after the other, they spread like a fan, in order to have a greater s.p.a.ce to explore, and not lose the slightest indication. So soon as the scouts were at the arranged distance, the Mexicans mounted and followed them, being careful not to let them out of sight, as far as was possible.

When Valentine told Don Miguel that he had followed more difficult trails, he was either boasting, or, as is more probable, judging from his frank character, he wished to restore hope to his friend.

In order to follow a trail, it must exist. Red Cedar was too old a wood ranger to neglect the slightest precaution, for he knew too well that, however large the desert may be, a man habituated to cross it always Succeeds in finding the man he is pursuing.

He knew, too, that he was followed by the most experienced hunter of the Far West, whom, by common accord, white and half-breed trappers, and the redskins themselves, had surnamed ”The Trail-hunter.” Hence he surpa.s.sed himself, and nothing was to be seen.

Although Valentine and his two comrades might interrogate the desert, it remained dumb and indecipherable as a closed book. For five hours they had been walking, and nothing had given an embodiment to their suspicions, or proved to them that they were on the right track.

Still, with that patience which characterises men accustomed to prairie life, and whose tenacity no word can express, the three men marched on, advancing, step by step, with their bodies bent, their eyes fixed on the ground, never yielding to the insurmountable difficulties that opposed them, but, on the contrary, excited by these very difficulties, which proved that they had an adversary worthy of them.

Valentine walked in the centre, with Curumilla on his right and Eagle-wing on his left. They were crossing at this moment a level plain, where a considerable view could be enjoyed; on one side stood the outposts of the virgin forest, on the other was the Gila, running over a sand bed. On reaching the bank of a small stream, obstructed with shrubs, Valentine noticed all at once that two or three small branches were broken a few inches from the ground.

The hunter stopped, and in order to examine more closely, lay down on the ground, carefully regarding the fracture of the wood, as he thrust his head into the copse. Suddenly he started up on his knees, uttering a cry of joy: his comrades ran up to him.

”Ah, by Heaven,” Valentine exclaimed; ”now I have him. Look, look!”

And he showed the Indians a few horse's hairs he held in his hand.

Curumilla examined them attentively, while Eagle-wing, without saying a word, formed with earth and stones a d.y.k.e across the bed of the stream, which was only a few yards in width.

”Well, what do you say to that, chief?” Valentine asked. ”Have I guessed it?”

”Wah,” the Indian replied, ”Koutonepi has good eyes; these hairs come from Red Cedar's horse.”

”I noticed that the horse he rode was iron grey.”

”Yes; but it halts.”

”I know it, with the off foreleg.”

At this moment the Coras summoned them: he had turned the course of the stream, and the traces of a horse's hoofs could be distinctly traced in the sand.

”Do you see?” said Valentine.

”Yes,” Curumilla remarked; ”but he is alone.”

”Hang it, so he is.”

The two warriors looked at him in amazement.

”Listen,” Valentine said, after a moment's reflection, ”this is a false trail. On reaching this stream, where it was impossible for him not to leave signs, Red Cedar, supposing that we should look for them in the water, crossed the stream alone, although it would be easy for men less accustomed to the desert than ourselves to suppose that a party had crossed here. Look down there on the other side, at a horse's marks. Red Cedar wanted to be too clever; showing us a trail at all has ruined him.