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Updated: May 6, 2025
It was easy to divine that, with such elements in the gang, there had been no long separation between the horsemen and the treasure they were guarding, and, eager as he was to overtake the renegades, Drummond promptly decided to follow the hoof-tracks, rightly conjecturing, too, that they would bring him to water in the rocky tanks below.
There was not much difficulty in deciding who had committed this murder. Where the skeletons of the dogs were found the ground was soft, and there were hoof-tracks that did not belong to the horses of the hunters. These were recognised by several. They were the tracks of the well-known horse of Carlos the cibolero. Beyond a doubt Carlos had done the deed.
Straight away after them went the ruck of hoof-tracks, telling plainly that for a time at least the gang had massed and was prepared to guard its plunder.
Following the freshest hoof-tracks, he found the young officer riding about through the thick smoke within the corral. "Any sign of Moreno or his people, sir?" he hailed. "Not yet. Just see what's beyond that door-way. My horse is frightened at something there and I can't see for the smoke." Obedient, the sergeant pushed ahead, bending low to avoid the stifling fumes.
It looked like the dry bed of a stream; but the hoof-tracks in the bottom showed that it was what he had called it, a buffalo-road, leading, no doubt, to some river or watering-place. It was so deep that, in riding along it, the heads of our travellers were on a level with the prairie.
"Da's da ole wagon! da same spring an vley da same place dar hab been um trek-boken!" "A trek-boken!" cried Von Bloom and Hendrik, in a breath. "Ya, baas a mighty big one too; das da spoor of dem antelope See!" Von Bloom now comprehended all. The bareness of the country, the absence of the leaves on the lower bushes, the millions of small hoof-tracks, all were now explained.
Punch's little hoof-tracks, cutting through a sandy bit in the northward ravine, had drawn them all that way, but nothing further had been found. His horse, too, said the orderly, was lame and failing, so he had been bidden to wait by the water and watch for couriers either from the front or out from the post. Byrne was one of those never-give-up men, and they all knew him.
There were those of the baboons by the dozen, and the hoof-tracks of horses, probably those of some of our men when they made a circuit of the rocky hillock. Every hoof-mark was made by horses going in the direction we were; but still no sign of a lion. "Keep a sharp lookout," said the Sergeant softly; and I remember thinking his words unnecessary, seeing that every one was keenly on the alert.
With that, his keen eyes noticed that the right-hand road was cut and marked with the many hoof-tracks of a flock of sheep. He argued to himself that the sheep-drivers had told him that they were going to California. The California road led up the bank of the Republican Fork close to the trail that led him from Younkins's to the ford across the river.
More likely a party of mounted travellers belonging to the train? And yet this did not strike us as being likely. We were soon convinced that such was not the case. On riding forward, we came upon a mud-deposit at the mouth of one of the transverse ravines over which led the trail. The mud exhibited the tracks distinctly and in a more significant light they were hoof-tracks!
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