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All through a vast continent, thus infested, helpless people of every caste and kind moved along the paths and trails in couples and groups silently by night, carrying the commerce of the country treasure, jewels, money, and petty batches of silks, spices, and all manner of wares. It was a paradise for the Thug. When the autumn opened, the Thugs began to gather together by pre-concert.
It was necessary to avoid the well beaten trails, so that the route was not only made longer, but much more difficult on account of the obstacles named. Yet they were working for a great stake. The lives of General Kearney and his brave men were in the balance. If Carson and Beale failed to bring help right speedily, they were doomed.
Delancy said very honestly: "You'll have to control me; I'm likely to let drive at anything." "You're more likely to forget to shoot until the pig is out of sight," she whispered, laughing. "Look! Three trails! They were made last night." "Boar?" "Yes," she nodded, glancing at the deep cloven imprints.
In the forests we saw numberless old elephant pits, and on the grassy slopes there were mazes of elephants' trails, some so big that hundreds of elephants must have moved along them. But we saw no elephants. We scanned the hills for miles and tramped for days in ideal elephant country, but our quest was all in vain.
Why should that invertebrate wastrel have turned up to plague us so?" Some time had elapsed before we got the horses harnessed, because they objected strenuously, and several branching trails crossed the prairie, so we spent a much longer time than I liked in driving through the bitter cold before we found my late accuser sitting under a copse of willows, and apparently awaiting his death.
First he stared into Rathburn's eyes, and then he glanced to the gun in the holster on his thigh. "Couldn't have been very much afraid of you," he said sneeringly. "I see they didn't even take your gun." "It all come from my not knowin' enough about the trails, I guess," Rathburn explained lamely. "Got me on the far end of the hogback. Two of 'em. Had their guns in my face before I knew it.
The Desert that surrounded us was a sufficient barrier against that; besides, I knew that the mountain was far to the southward of the trails usually followed by the prairie traders.
From this moment the old man held his head high, and went about the work with confidence. He built trails where trails had long been needed; he regulated the grazing; he fought fire so successfully that his burned area dropped that year from two per cent. to one-half of one per cent.; he adjusted minor cases of special use and privilege justly.
Here trees grow and fall, and nature covers them where they lie with a new vegetation which altogether obliterates their hasty decay. It is four miles of beautiful and inextricable confusion, untrodden by human feet except on the narrow track. "Of every tree in this garden thou mayest freely eat," and no serpent or noxious thing trails its hideous form through this Eden.
There were kongoni, zebra, topi, waterbuck, wart-hogs, reedbuck, oribi, eland, and Uganda cob, but scour the country as we would, we saw no sign of elephant except the broad trails in the grass and the countless evidences that they had been in the region some time before. The country was beautiful and wholesome.
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