第18章

Besides, perhaps they felt a little humiliation at abandoning a chase which he chose to keep up.Anyway, they were gone, apparently without breakfast.

The morning was clear, cool, with the air dark like that before a storm, and in the east, over the steely wall of stone, shone a redness growing brighter.

Slone looked away to the west, down the trail taken by his comrades, but he saw nothing moving against that cedar-dotted waste.

"Good-by," he said, and he spoke as if he was saying good-by to more than comrades.

"I reckon I won't see Sevier Village soon again--an' maybe never," he soliloquized.

There was no one to regret him, unless it was old Mother Hall, who had been kind to him on those rare occasions when he got out of the wilderness.Still, it was with regret that he gazed away across the red valley to the west.Slone had no home.His father and mother had been lost in the massacre of a wagon-train by Indians, and he had been one of the few saved and brought to Salt Lake.That had happened when he was ten years old.His life thereafter had been hard, and but for his sturdy Texas training he might not have survived.The last five years he had been a horse-hunter in the wild uplands of Nevada and Utah.

Slone turned his attention to the pack of supplies.The Stewarts had divided the flour and the parched corn equally, and unless he was greatly mistaken they had left him most of the coffee and all of the salt.

"Now I hold that decent of Bill an' Abe," said Slone, regretfully."But Icould have got along without it better 'n they could."Then he swiftly set about kindling a fire and getting a meal.In the midst of his task a sudden ruddy brightness fell around him.Lin Slone paused in his work to look up.

The sun had risen over the eastern wall.

"Ah!" he said, and drew a deep breath.

The cold, steely, darkling sweep of desert had been transformed.It was now a world of red earth and gold rocks and purple sage, with everywhere the endless straggling green cedars.A breeze whipped in, making the fire roar softly.The sun felt warm on his cheek.And at the moment he heard the whistle of his horse.

"Good old Nagger!" he said."I shore won't have to track you this mornin'."Presently he went off into the cedars to find Nagger and the mustang that he used to carry a pack.Nagger was grazing in a little open patch among the trees, but the pack-horse was missing.Slone seemed to know in what direction to go to find the trail, for he came upon it very soon.The pack-horse wore hobbles, but he belonged to the class that could cover a great deal of ground when hobbled.Slone did not expect the horse to go far, considering that the grass thereabouts was good.But in a wild-horse country it was not safe to give any horse a chance.The call of his wild brethren was irresistible.

Slone, however, found the mustang standing quietly in a clump of cedars, and, removing the hobbles, he mounted and rode back to camp.Nagger caught sight of him and came at his call.

This horse Nagger appeared as unique in his class as Slone was rare among riders.Nagger seemed of several colors, though black predominated.His coat was shaggy, almost woolly, like that of a sheep.He was huge, raw-boned, knotty, long of body and long of leg, with the head of a war charger.His build did not suggest speed.There appeared to be something slow and ponderous about him, similar to an elephant, with the same suggestion of power and endurance.Slone discarded the pack-saddle and bags.The latter were almost empty.He roped the tarpaulin on the back of the mustang, and, making a small bundle of his few supplies, he tied that to the tarpaulin.His blanket he used for a saddle-blanket on Nagger.Of the utensils left by the Stewarts he chose a couple of small iron pans, with long handles.The rest he left.In his saddle-bags he had a few extra a horseshoes, some nails, bullets for his rifle, and a knife with a heavy blade.

"Not a rich outfit for a far country," he mused.Slone not talk very much, and when he did he addressed Nagger and himself simultaneously.Evidently he expected a long chase, one from which he would not return, and light as his outfit was it would grow too heavy.

Then he mounted and rode down the gradual slope, facing the valley and the black, bold, flat mountain to the southeast.Some few hundred yards from camp he halted Nagger and bent over in the saddle to scrutinize the ground.

The clean-cut track of a horse showed in the bare, hard sand.The hoof-marks were large, almost oval, perfect in shape, and manifestly they were beautiful to Lin Slone.He gazed at them for a long time, and then he looked across the dotted red valley up the vast ridgy steps, toward the black plateau and beyond.It was the look that an Indian gives to a strange country.Then Slone slipped off the saddle and knelt to scrutinize the horse tracks.A little sand had blown into the depressions, and some of it was wet and some of it was dry.

He took his time about examining it, and he even tried gently blowing other sand into the tracks, to compare that with what was already there.Finally he stood up and addressed Nagger.

"Reckon we won't have to argue with Abe an' Bill this mornin'," he said, with satisfaction."Wildfire made that track yesterday, before sun-up.

Thereupon Slone remounted and put Nagger to a trot.The pack-horse followed with an alacrity that showed he had no desire for loneliness.

As straight as a bee-line Wildfire had left a trail down into the floor of the valley.He had not stopped to graze, and he had not looked for water.Slone had hoped to find a water-hole in one of the deep washes in the red earth, but if there had been any water there Wildfire would have scented it.He had not had a drink for three days that Slone knew of.And Nagger had not drunk for forty hours.Slone had a canvas water-bag hanging over the pommel, but it was a habit of his to deny himself, as far as possible, till his horse could drink also.Like an Indian, Slone ate and drank but little.