but once more sending the trackers
forward, moved on after them.

We had advanced about half-a-mile farther, when the horse-tracks,
hitherto scattered, and tending in different directions, became merged
together, as though the Indians had been riding, not in single file--as
is their ordinary method--but in an irregular body of several abreast.

The trackers, after proceeding along this new trail for a hundred yards
or so, deliberately drew up; and dismounting, bent down upon their hands
and knees, as if once more to examine the sign. The rest of us halted a
little behind, and watched their proceedings without offering to
interrupt them.

Both were observed to be busy blowing aside the ashes, not now from any
particular track, but from the full breadth of the trail.

In a few minutes, they succeeded in removing the black dust from a
stretch of several yards--so that the numerous hoof-prints could be
distinctly traced, side by side, or overlapping and half obliterating
one another.

Rube now returned to where they had commenced; and then once more
leisurely advancing upon his knees, with eyes close to the surface,
appeared to scrutinise the print of every hoof separately.

Before he had reached the spot where Garey was still engaged in clearing
off the dust, he rose to his feet with an air that told he was
satisfied, and turning to his companion, cried out--

"Don't bother furrer, Bill: it ur jest as I thort; they've roped 'im, by
Gad!"

CHAPTER SEVENTY FOUR.

THE STEED LAZOED.

It was not the emphatic tone in which this announcement was made that
produced within me conviction of its truth; I should have been convinced
without that. I was better than half prepared for the intelligence thus
rudely conveyed; for I was myself not altogether unskilled in that art
of which my trapper-companions were masters.

I had observed the sudden convergence of the horse-tracks; I had noticed
also, that, after coming together, the animals had proceeded at a slow
pace--at a walk. I needed only to perceive the hoof of the steed among
the others, to know that he no longer ran free--that he was a captive.

This the tracker had found; hence the decisive declaration that the
Indians had "roped" him--in other words, had caught him with their
lazoes.

"Sartint they've tuk 'im," asserted Rube, in answer to an interrogatory:
"sartint sure; hyur's his track clur as daylight. He's been led hyur at
the eend o' a laryette; he'