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A string of cattle coming in from The Rolls stopped and stared at the solitary horseman, head up against the sky; then as he rode on they fell in behind him, travelling the deep-worn trail that led to Hidden Water.
One or two that he manoeuvered as far as the outlet sprang back in fear from something on the ground, which, on examination, he found yes, he swears to this to be the deep-worn, fresh-worn pathway of a Grizzly from one wall across to the other. All the sheep were now back again beyond his reach. Pedro began to fear for himself, so hastily returned to the main flock. He was worse off than ever now.
Williams had warned them to carry as much water as possible in barrels, as a precaution against suffering if they failed to strike water each night. He had told them that water was scarce, but that his cowboy scouts and the deep-worn buffalo trails had been able to bring him through with water at every camp save two or three. The Staked Plains, he said, would be the hardest drive.
The deep-worn buffalo trails seemed so fresh the boy's heart quickened with the thought that he might by chance come suddenly upon a stray bunch of them feeding in some deep swale. He had passed beyond fences, and his course was still substantially westward.
But what strange interest there is in tracing out the first steps by which we enter on a career that influences our life; and this deep-worn pathway on the hill-top, passing and repassing by a grave, seemed to symbolize it in Septimius's case. I suppose the morbidness of Septimius's disposition was excited by the circumstances which had put the paper into his possession.
He was large and fat, with a broad, hazy, muffin face, a sleepy eye, and a full double chin. He had a deep ravine from each corner of his mouth, not occasioned by any irascible contraction of the muscles, but apparently the deep-worn channels of two rivulets of gravy that oozed out from the huge mouthfuls that he masticated.
It snuggled in the heart of a wild tangle of hills all turreted and battlemented with ledge and pinnacle of rock, from which ran huge escarpments clothed with spruce and pine, scarred and gashed on every hand with slides and deep-worn watercourses, down which tumultuous streams rioted their foamy way.
Up the cañon a deep-worn path led along the base of the bluff; and as the two best friends followed along its windings Hardy pointed out the mysteries of the land: strange trees and shrubs, bristling with thorns; cactus in its myriad forms; the birds which flashed past them or sang in the wild gladness of springtime; lizards, slipping about in the sands or pouring from cracks in the rocks all the curious things which his eyes had seen and his mind taken note of in the long days of solitary riding, and which his poet's soul now interpreted into a higher meaning for the woman who could understand.
"Mushroom towns sprang up all over the district; deep-worn native paths became ore roads between the burrows and the river-landings; sink-holes abandoned by the Sauk and Foxes, when no longer to be operated with their crude tools, were reopened and found to be exceptionally rich, while new diggings and smelting-furnaces, fitted out with modern appliances, fairly dotted the map of the country." *
When the fresh scent led them back over the grizzly's first trail, they hesitated, confused, disagreeing among themselves as to the course to follow: and while the dogs delayed, the bear abandoned the lower ridges and timbered valleys and headed toward the cliffs. Here the going was slow. Sometimes he followed old, deep-worn game trails, but more often he chose his own way.