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Brown, who had by this time received his change, put a shilling into her hand, bade his hostess farewell, and, taking the route which the farmer had gone before, walked briskly on, with the advantage of being guided by the fresh hoof-prints of his horse. Meg Merrilies looked after him for some time, and then muttered to herself, 'I maun see that lad again; and I maun gang back to Ellangowan too.
In their haste and lack of system, he saw how they had crossed and recrossed the marks left by the riders they were chasing. He walked his horse to and fro until he came upon the tracks of the two horses showing clear beyond the jumbled confusion of hoof-prints the amateur trackers had made. The two had ridden direct to the range.
"See," Ayesha said, pointing to tracks and hoof-prints on the plain at its head, "there was a chariot awaiting him, and harnessed to it were four swift horses. Atene's scheme was clever and well laid, and I, grown oversure and careless, slept through it all!"
At the end of the first hundred yards on the new scent he came again upon the fresh hoof-prints, and took off the brow-cramping hat to swear the easier.
A moment or two later he was mounted on the bare back of Mad Whately's horse, following Chunk down the stream so that the flowing water might obliterate the hoof-prints. They soon left the water and put their horses to a gallop toward the forest, within whose shades they disappeared. Both had deemed best not to tell Aun' Jinkey of their departure, so that she might honestly plead ignorance.
The old Indian rose and picked up a blanket. In the doorway he paused, surveying the western horizon. Satisfied that no one was in sight, he padded out to where Andy had tied his horse and swept the blanket across the tracks in the loose sand. Walking backwards he drew the blanket after him, obliterating the hoof-prints until he came to a rise where the ground was rocky.
Down in a rocky cañon a number of hoof-prints on the trail diverged to the left and followed an abrupt descent, while the wagons had kept to the right, and by a winding and more gradual road seemed to have sought a crossing farther to the west.
The clay soil was cut up from fence to fence by cows' feet, and whether it presented an unbroken puddle or a succession of small ones made by the hoof-prints, it was everywhere so slippery that retaining one's footing was no slight task, and of course there was no pretense of a sidewalk.
But the thought was repellent, and, besides, she was not a good shot with a revolver. Nor did the cactus offer any relief, since it was only just coming into bloom, and as yet bore no fruit. The sun had grown red and huge when at last in the hard-baked dirt she discovered fresh hoof-prints.
He would fall as he had seen other men fall, the life knocked out of them so suddenly that their knees were no more quick to touch the ground than their heads. He saw the long blue line of the regiment, but his comrades were standing looking at him from the edge of an impossible star. He was aware of some deep wheel-ruts and hoof-prints in the sod beneath his feet.
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