LITMIR.BIZ

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xmlns:fb="http://www.gribuser.ru/xml/fictionbook/2.0" xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format" xlink:href="#n_235" type="note">[235] of a hull buffalo. Come and see for yourself. But,” continued the scout in a muttered undertone, “if you wish me to follow up the sign as it ought to be done, you’ll order the others to stay back – ’specially them as are now nearest you.”

      This observation appeared to be more particularly pointed at the planter and his nephew; as the tracker, on making it, glanced furtively towards both.

      “By all means,” replied the major. “Yes, Spangler, you shall have every facility for your work. Gentlemen! may I request you to remain where you are for a few minutes. My tracker, here, has to go through a performance that requires him to have the ground to himself. He can only take me along with him.”

      Of course the major’s request was a command, courteously conveyed, to men who were not exactly his subordinates. It was obeyed, however, just as if they had been; and one and all kept their places, while the officer, following his scout, rode away from the ground.

      About fifty yards further on, Spangler came to a stand.

      “You see that, major?” said he, pointing to the ground.

      “I should be blind if I didn’t,” replied the officer. “A pool of blood – as you say, big enough to have emptied the veins of a buffalo. If it has come from those of a man, I should say that whoever shed it is no longer in the land of the living.”

      “Dead!” pronounced the tracker. “Dead before that blood had turned purple – as it is now.”

      “Whose do you think it is, Spangler?”

      “That of the man we’re in search of – the son of the old gentleman down there. That’s why I didn’t wish him to come forward.”

      “He may as well know the worst. He must find it out in time.”

      “True what you say, major; but we had better first find out how the young fellow has come to be thrown in his tracks. That’s what is puzzling me.”

      “How! by the Indians, of course? The Comanches have done it?”

      “Not a bit of it,” rejoined the scout, with an air of confidence.

      “Hu! why do you say that, Spangler?”

      “Because, you see, if the Indyins had a been here, there would be forty horse-tracks instead of four, and them made by only two horses.”

      “There’s truth in that. It isn’t likely a single Comanch would have had the daring, even to assassinate – ”

      “No Comanche, major, no Indyin of any kind committed this murder. There are two horse-tracks along the opening. As you see, both are shod; and they’re the same that have come back again. Comanches don’t ride shod horses, except when they’ve stolen them. Both these were ridden by white men. One set of the tracks has been made by a mustang, though it it was a big ’un. The other is the hoof of an American horse. Goin’ west the mustang was foremost; you can tell that by the overlap. Comin’ back the States horse was in the lead, the other followin’ him; though it’s hard to say how fur behind. I may be able to tell better, if we keep on to the place whar both must have turned back. It can’t be a great ways off.”

      “Let us proceed thither, then,” said the major. “I shall command the people to stay where they are.”

      Having issued the command, in a voice loud enough to be heard by his following, the major rode away from the bloodstained spot, preceded by the tracker.

      For about four hundred yards further on, the two sets of tracks were traceable; but by the eye of the major, only where the turf was softer under the shadow of the trees. So far – the scout said the horses had passed and returned in the order already declared by him: – that is, the mustang in the lead while proceeding westward, and in the rear while going in the opposite direction.

      At this point the trail ended – both horses, as was already known, having returned on their own tracks.

      Before taking the back track, however, they had halted, and stayed some time in the same place – under the branches of a spreading cottonwood. The turf, much trampled around the trunk of the tree, was evidence of this.

      The tracker got off his horse to examine it; and, stooping to the earth, carefully scrutinised the sign.

      “They’ve been here thegither,” said he, after several minutes spent in his analysis, “and for some time; though neither’s been out of the saddle. They’ve been on friendly terms, too; which makes it all the more unexplainable. They must have quarrelled afterwards.”

      “If you are speaking the truth, Spangler, you must be a witch. How on earth can you know all that?”

      “By the sign, major; by the sign. It’s simple enough. I see the shoes of both horses lapping over each other a score of times; and in such a way that shows they must have been thegither – the animals, it might be, restless and movin’ about. As for the time, they’ve taken long enough to smoke a cigar apiece – close to the teeth too. Here are the stumps; not enough left to fill a fellow’s pipe.”

      The tracker, stooping as he spoke, picked up a brace of cigar stumps, and handed them to the major.

      “By the same token,” he continued, “I conclude that the two horsemen, whoever they were, while under this tree could not have had any very hostile feelins, the one to the tother. Men don’t smoke in company with the design of cutting each other’s throats, or blowing out one another’s brains, the instant afterwards. The trouble between them must have come on after the cigars were smoked out. That it did come there can be no doubt. As sure, major, as you’re sittin’ in your saddle, one of them has wiped out the other. I can only guess which has been wiped out, by the errand we’re on. Poor Mr Poindexter will niver more see his son alive.”

      “’Tis very mysterious,” remarked the major.

      “It is, by jingo!”

      “And the body, too; where can it be?”

      “That’s what purplexes me most of all. If ’t had been Indyins, I wouldn’t a thought much o’ its being missin’. They might a carried the man off wi them to make a target of him, if only wounded; and if dead, to eat him, maybe. But there’s been no Indyins here – not a redskin. Take my word for it, major, one o’ the two men who rid these horses has wiped out the other; and sartinly he have wiped him out in the litterlest sense o’ the word. What he’s done wi’ the body beats me; and perhaps only hisself can tell.”

      “Most strange!” exclaimed the major, pronouncing the words with emphasis – “most mysterious!”

      “It’s possible we may yet unravel some o’ the mystery,” pursued Spangler. “We must follow up the tracks of the horses, after they started from this – that is, from where the deed was done. We may make something out of that. There’s nothing more to be learnt here. We may as well go back, major. Am I to tell him?”

      “Mr Poindexter, you mean?”

      “Yes. You are convinced that his son is the man who has been murdered?”

      “Oh, no; not so much as that comes to. Only convinced that the horse the old gentleman is now riding is one of the two that’s been over this ground last night – the States horse I feel sure. I have compared the tracks; and if young Poindexter was the man who was on his back, I fear there’s not much chance for the poor fellow. It looks ugly that the other rid after him.”

      “Spangler! have you any suspicion as to who the other may be?”

      “Not a spark, major. If’t hadn’t been for the tale of Old Duffer I’d never have thought of Maurice the mustanger. True, it’s the track o’ a shod mustang; but I don’t know it to be hisn. Surely it can’t be? The young Irishman aint the man to stand nonsense from nobody; but as little air he the one to do a deed like this – that is, if

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