"Be at your ease, my friend, about that," the general said; "we have too great an interest in not quitting you. _Canarios!_ what would become of us alone, lost in this confounded desert?"

"Come, come, something tells me that we shall succeed," Valentine said gaily, "so we will have courage."

"May heaven grant you are not mistaken, my friend," Don Miguel said sadly. "My poor child!"

"We will deliver her. I have followed a more difficult trail before now."

With these consolatory words, the two Indians and the hunter set out.

Instead of taking Indian file, as ordinarily adopted on the prairie, and marching one after the other, they spread like a fan, in order to have a greater s.p.a.ce to explore, and not lose the slightest indication. So soon as the scouts were at the arranged distance, the Mexicans mounted and followed them, being careful not to let them out of sight, as far as was possible.

When Valentine told Don Miguel that he had followed more difficult trails, he was either boasting, or, as is more probable, judging from his frank character, he wished to restore hope to his friend.

In order to follow a trail, it must exist. Red Cedar was too old a wood ranger to neglect the slightest precaution, for he knew too well that, however large the desert may be, a man habituated to cross it always Succeeds in finding the man he is pursuing.

He knew, too, that he was followed by the most experienced hunter of the Far West, whom, by common accord, white and half-breed trappers, and the redskins themselves, had surnamed "The Trail-hunter." Hence he surpa.s.sed himself, and nothing was to be seen.

Although Valentine and his two comrades might interrogate the desert, it remained dumb and indecipherable as a closed book. For five hours they had been walking, and nothing had given an embodiment to their suspicions, or proved to them that they were on the right track.

Still, with that patience which characterises men accustomed to prairie life, and whose tenacity no word can express, the three men marched on, advancing, step by step, with their bodies bent, their eyes fixed on the ground, never yielding to the insurmountable difficulties that opposed them, but, on the contrary, excited by these very difficulties, which proved that they had an adversary worthy of them.

Valentine walked in the centre, with Curumilla on his right and Eagle-wing on his left. They were crossing at this moment a level plain, where a considerable view could be enjoyed; on one side stood the outposts of the virgin forest, on the other was the Gila, running over a sand bed. On reaching the bank of a small stream, obstructed with shrubs, Valentine noticed all at once that two or three small branches were broken a few inches from the ground.

The hunter stopped, and in order to examine more closely, lay down on the ground, carefully regarding the fracture of the wood, as he thrust his head into the copse. Suddenly he started up on his knees, uttering a cry of joy: his comrades ran up to him.

"Ah, by Heaven," Valentine exclaimed; "now I have him. Look, look!"

And he showed the Indians a few horse's hairs he held in his hand.

Curumilla examined them attentively, while Eagle-wing, without saying a word, formed with earth and stones a d.y.k.e across the bed of the stream, which was only a few yards in width.

"Well, what do you say to that, chief?" Valentine asked. "Have I guessed it?"

"Wah," the Indian replied, "Koutonepi has good eyes; these hairs come from Red Cedar's horse."

"I noticed that the horse he rode was iron grey."

"Yes; but it halts."

"I know it, with the off foreleg."

At this moment the Coras summoned them: he had turned the course of the stream, and the traces of a horse's hoofs could be distinctly traced in the sand.

"Do you see?" said Valentine.

"Yes," Curumilla remarked; "but he is alone."

"Hang it, so he is."

The two warriors looked at him in amazement.

"Listen," Valentine said, after a moment's reflection, "this is a false trail. On reaching this stream, where it was impossible for him not to leave signs, Red Cedar, supposing that we should look for them in the water, crossed the stream alone, although it would be easy for men less accustomed to the desert than ourselves to suppose that a party had crossed here. Look down there on the other side, at a horse's marks. Red Cedar wanted to be too clever; showing us a trail at all has ruined him.

The rest of the band, which he joined again presently, instead of crossing, descended the bed of the stream to the Gila, where they embarked and pa.s.sed to the other side of the river."

The two Indians, on hearing this clear explanation, could not repress a cry of admiration. Valentine burst the d.y.k.e, and with their help formed another one hundred yards below, a short distance from the Gila. The bed of the stream was hardly dry, ere the two Indians clapped their hands, while uttering exclamations of delight.

Valentine had guessed aright: this time they had discovered the real trail, for the bed of the stream had been trampled by a large band of horses.

"Oh, oh," Valentine said; "I fancy we are on the right road."

He then imitated the cry of a swan, and the Mexicans, who had been puzzled by the movements of the hunters, and were anxious to hear the news, galloped up.

"Well?" Don Miguel shouted.

"Good news," said Valentine.

"You have the trail?" the general asked, hurriedly.

"I think so," the hunter modestly replied.

"Oh!" said Don Pablo, joyously; "In that case we shall soon catch the villain."

"I hope so. We must now cross the river; but let us three go first."

The three hunters leaped on their horses and crossed the river, followed at a distance by the others. On reaching the other side of the Gila, instead of ascending the bank, they followed the current for some distance, carefully examining the ground.

"Ah!" Valentine suddenly exclaimed, as he stopped his horse. "I think the men we are pursuing landed here."

"That is the place," said Curumilla, with a nod.

"Yes," Moukapec confirmed him; "it is easy to see."

In fact, the spot was admirably adapted for landing without leaving any signs. The bank was bordered for nearly one hundred yards with large flat rocks, shaped like tombstones, where the horses could rest their hoofs without any fear of leaving a mark. These atones extended for a considerable distance into the plain, and thus formed a species of natural highway, nearly half a mile in width.

Still, a thing had happened which no one could have foreseen, and which would have pa.s.sed unnoticed, save for Valentine's watchful eye. One of the horses, in climbing on to the rock, had miscalculated its distance and slipped, so that an almost imperceptible graze, left by its hoof on the stone, showed the quick-sighted hunter where the party struck the bank.

The hunters followed the same road; but, so soon as they had landed, the trail disappeared anew. Although the scouts looked around with the most minute attention, they found nothing that would indicate to them the road followed by the enemy on leaving the water.

Valentine, with his hands resting on the muzzle of his rifle, was thinking deeply, at one moment looking on the ground, at another raising his eyes to the sky, like a man busied with the solution of a problem which seems to him impossible, when suddenly he perceived a white headed eagle soaring in long circles over a ma.s.s of rocks, situated a little to the right of the spot where he was standing.

"Hum," the hunter said to himself, as he watched the eagle, whose circles were growing gradually smaller, "what is the matter with that bird? I am curious to know."

Summoning his two comrades, he threw his rifle on his back, and hurried toward the spot above which the bird of prey still continued to hover.

Valentine imparted to the Indians the suspicions that had sprung up in his mind, and the three men began painfully climbing up the ma.s.s of rocks strangely piled up one on the other, and which rose like a small hill in the middle of the prairie.

On reaching the top the hunters stopped to pant; the eagle, startled by their unexpected appearance, had flown reluctantly away. They found themselves on a species of platform, which must infallibly have once served as a sepulchre to some renowned Indian warrior, for several shapeless fragments lay here and there, near a rather wide cavity, some ten yards in width.

Valentine bent over the edge of this hole, but the obscurity was so dense, owing to the shape of the cavity, that he could perceive nothing, though his sense of smell was most disagreeably a.s.sailed by a fetid odour of decaying flesh.

"Hilloah! what is this?" he asked.