emember all I
have told you, and see if I haven't made a pretty good guess."

"Do you think we shall catch them?" asked Bob.

"Well," answered George slowly, "raiding Indians _have_ been overtaken
and neatly whipped before now, but I have always believed that it was
more by good luck than good management. These fellows will begin to show
their tactics as soon as they find out that they are pursued. Then they
will probably leave behind a few of the best mounted of the band to
attract our attention and lead us away from the others, who will make
all haste to take the prisoners and the stolon stock to a place of
safety. If we bite at that bait, we shall lose everything, for as soon
as the decoys have led us as far out of our way as they care to have us
go, they will disappear all of a sudden, and we shall never see them
again. If we keep on after the main body, and travel fast enough to gain
on them, they will drop the stock in the desert, break up into squads of
twos and threes, and we shall have nothing to do but to turn about and
go home again."

The Indians did manoeuvre pretty nearly as George said they would, but
Captain Clinton and his scouting-party did not go back to the fort until
they had accomplished something.

CHAPTER X.

HOW GEORGE SAVED THE CAMP.

The troopers went into camp about midnight, having been nineteen hours
in the saddle, during which time they had marched more than seventy
miles. They halted on the bank of a small stream near a ford over which
the Indians had passed during their retreat. The trail was plain, and
some of the troopers, who did not know quite as much about trailing as
they thought they did, declared that they were close upon the heels of
the raiders.

"How is that, George?" asked Bob Owens, who had been detailed as one of
the corporals of the guard. "Some of the boys say that if we should
follow the Indians for an hour or two longer we would be within sight of
their camp-fires."

"What makes them think so?" asked George.

"Because they have found tracks with the sand still running into them.
Is that one of the signs by which to tell the age of a trail?"

"Under some circumstances, yes; in the present case, no. You could tell
the age of a trail in that way if the ground around it had not been
disturbed. This country about here is all quicksand, and you can take
your stand almost anywhere along the banks of this stream, and by
jumping up and down shake the ground