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He said this to Tsoay, and the other emphatically agreed. "The horse is too lame to go on," the younger man reported. Travis hesitated for a long second. Since the time they had stolen their first mounts from the encroaching Spanish, horses had always been wealth to his people. To leave an animal which could well serve the clan was not right. But they dared not waste time with a lame beast.
Tsoay took a swift stride, stood over the writhing girl whose strength was now such that Travis had to exert all his efforts to control her. "I think that the machine she spoke about is holding her. She is being drawn to it out of hiding as one draws a calf on a rope." Both coyotes had arisen and were watching the struggle with interest, but there was no warning from them.
"Did any man drive you, Nolan, or you, Tsoay, or you, Jil-Lee, or any of us, to promise to go beyond the stars? You were told what might be done, and you were eager to try it. You were all volunteers!" "Save for this voyage when we were told nothing," Jil-Lee answered, cutting straight to the heart of the matter.
How can I? But it will be another way of seeking." "Tsoay shall go. He keeps silent before older warriors as is proper for the untried, but his thoughts fly free as do yours," Buck replied. "It is in him also, this need to see new places." "There is this," Jil-Lee got to his feet, " do not go so far, brother, that you may not easily find a way to return.
They lay so, the unknown still tight in Travis' hold but no longer fighting. The Apache could hear Tsoay soothing the horse with the purring words of a practiced horseman. Still the stranger did not resume the struggle. They could not lie in this position all night, Travis thought with a wry twist of amusement. He shifted his hold, and got the lightning-quick response he had expected.
The four-footed ones are indeed ga-n for the service of those they like, but it is not good that man walks alone from his kind." There it was again, the feeling of clan solidarity which Travis did not always share. On the other hand, Tsoay would not be a hindrance.
"There is that also " Tsoay indicated the one trace left by the unknown rider, an impression blurred as if some attempt had been made to conceal it. "Small and light, the rider is both. Also in fear, I think " "We follow?" Tsoay asked. "We follow," Travis assented. He looked to the coyotes, and as he had learned to do, thought out his message. This trail was the one to be followed.
Travis waited for him to enlarge on that suggestion. Tsoay was one of the youngest of their group, Buck's own cross-cousin and near-brother. "It is well," Buck explained, "that we learn this land, and it has always been our custom that the younger walk in the footprints of the older. Also, not only should trails be learned, but also men." Travis caught the thought behind that.
Sentries on lookout reported by mirror flash that Tsoay, Deklay, Lupe, and Nolan were now on the move to join the other three Apaches. If and when Manulito's trap closed its jaws on the Reds at the western ship, the news would pass and the Apaches would move out to storm the enemy fort on the prairie.
And what they found was familiar, another confirmation that the fugitive was Terran, not native to Topaz. With searching eyes, Travis examined the site indicated by the coyotes. His respect for the stranger was raised another notch. In time either he or Tsoay might have sighted that hideaway without the aid of the animal scouts; on the other hand, they might have failed.
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