On resuming the trail, I was cheered by three considerations. The peril
of the flood was past--she was not drowned. The wolves were thrown
off--the dangerous rapid had deterred them; on the other side their
footprints were no longer found. Thirdly, the steed had slackened his
pace. After climbing the bank, he had set off in a rapid gait, but not
at a gallop.
"He's been pacin' hyar!" remarked Garey, as soon as his eyes rested upon
the tracks.
"Pacing!"
I knew what was meant by this; I knew that gait peculiar to the prairie
horse, fast but smooth as the amble of a palfrey. His rider would
scarcely perceive the gentle movement; her torture would be less.
Perhaps, too, no longer frighted by the fierce pursuers, the horse would
come to a stop. His wearied limbs would admonish him, and then--
Surely he could not have gone much farther?
We, too, were wearied, one and all; but these pleasing conjectures
beguiled us from thinking of our toil, and we advanced more hopefully
along the trail.
Alas! it was my fate to be the victim of alternate hopes and fears. My
new-sprung joy was short-lived, and fast fleeted away.
We had gone but a few hundred paces from the river, when we encountered
an obstacle, that proved not only a serious barrier to our progress, but
almost brought our tracking to a termination.
This obstacle was a forest of oaks, not _giant_ oaks, as these famed
trees are usually designated, but the very reverse--a forest of _dwarf_
oaks (_Quercus nana_). Far as the eye could reach extended this
singular wood, in which no tree rose above thirty inches in height! Yet
was it no thicket--no under-growth of shrubs--but a true forest of oaks,
each tree having its separate stem, its boughs, its lobed leaves, and
its bunches of brown acorns.
"Shin oak," cried the trappers, as we entered the verge of this
miniature forest.
"Wagh!" exclaimed Rube, in a tone of impatience, "hyur's bother. 'Ee
may all get out o' yur saddles an rest yur critturs: we'll hev to crawl
hyur."
And so it resulted. For long weary hours we followed the trail, going
not faster than we could have crawled upon our hands and knees. The
tracks of the steed were plain enough, and in daylight could have been
easily followed; but the little oaks grew close and regular as if
planted by the hand of man; and through their thick foliage the
moonlight scarcely penetrated. Their boughs almost touched each other,
so that the whole surface lay in dark shadow, rendering it almost
impossible to make out the hoof-prints. Here and there, a broken branch
or a bunch of tossed leaves--their under-sides shining glaucous in the
moonlight--enabled us to advance at a quicker rate; but as the horse had
passed gently over the ground, these "signs" were few and far between.
For long fretful hours we toiled through the "shin-oak" forest, our
heads far overtopping its tallest trees! We might have fancied that we
were threading our way through some extended nursery. The trail led
directly across its central part; and ere we had reached its furthest
verge, the moon's rays were mingling with the purple light of morning.
Soon after the "forest opened;" the little dwarfs grew further apart--
here scattered thinly over the ground, there disposed in clumps or
miniature grove?--until at length the sward of the prairie predominated.
The trouble of the trackers was at an end. The welcome light of the sun
was thrown upon the trail, so that they could lift it as fast as we
could ride; and, no longer hindered by brake or bush, we advanced at a
rapid rate across the prairie.
Over this ground the steed had also passed rapidly. He had continued to
pace for some distance, after emerging from the shin-oak forest; but all
at once, as we could tell by his tracks, he had bounded off again, and
resumed his headlong gallop.
What had started him afresh? We were at a loss to imagine; even the
prairie-men were puzzled!
Had wolves again attacked him, or some other enemy? No; nor one nor
other. It was a green prairie over which he had gone, a smooth sward of
mezquite-grass; but there were spots where the growth was thin--patches
nearly bare--and these were softened by the rain. Even the light paw of
a wolf would have impressed itself in such places, sufficiently to be
detected by the lynx-eyed men of the plains. The horse had passed since
the rain had ceased falling. No wolf, or other animal, had been after
him.
Perhaps he had taken a start of himself, freshly affrighted at the novel
mode in which he was ridden--still under excitement from the rough usage
he had received, and from which he had not yet cooled down--perhaps the
barbed points of the cohetes rankled in his flesh, acting like spurs;
perhaps some distant sound had led him to fancy the hooting mob, or the
howling wolves, still coming at his heels; perhaps--
An exclamation from the trackers, who were riding in the advance, put an
end to these conjectures. Both had pulled up, and were pointing to the
ground. No words were spoken--none needed. We all read with our eyes
an explanation of the renewed gallop.
Directly in front of us, the sward was cut and scored by numerous
tracks. Not four, but four hundred hoof-prints were indented in the
turf--all of them fresh as the trail we were following--and amidst these
the tracks of the steed, becoming intermingled, were lost to our view.
"A drove of wild horses," pronounced the guides at a glance.
They were the tracks of unshod hoofs, though that would scarcely have
proved them wild. An Indian troop might have ridden past without
leaving any other sign; but these horses had not been mounted, as the
trappers confidently alleged; and among them were the hoof-marks of
foals and half-grown colts, which proved the drove to be a _caballada_
of mustangs.
At the point where we first struck their tracks they had been going in
full speed, and the trail of the steed converged until it closed with
theirs at an acute angle.
"Ye-es," drawled Rube, "I see how 'tis. They've been skeeart at the
awkurd look o' the hoss, an hev put off. See! thur's his tracks on the
top o' all o' theirn: he's been runnin' arter 'em. Thur!" continued the
tracker, as we advanced--"thur he hez overtuk some o' 'em. See! thur!
the vamints hev scattered right an left! Hyur agin, they've galliped
thegither, some ahint, an some afore him. Wagh! I guess they know him
now, an ain't any more afeerd o' him. See thur! he's in the thick o'
the drove."
Involuntarily I raised my eyes, fancying from these words that the
horses were in sight; but no; the speaker was riding forward, leaning
over in his saddle, with looks fixed upon the ground. All that he had
spoken he had been reading from the surface of the prairie--from
hieroglyphics to me unintelligible, but to him more easily interpreted
than a page of the printed book.
I knew that what he was saying was true. The steed had galloped after a
drove of wild horses; he had overtaken them; and at the point where we
now were, had been passing along in their midst!
Dark thoughts came crowding into my mind at this discovery--another
shadow across my heart. I perceived at once a new situation of peril
for my betrothed--new, and strange, and awful.
I saw her in the midst of a troop of neighing wild-horses--stallions
with fiery eyes and red steaming nostrils--these perhaps angry at the
white steed, and jealous of his approach to the _manada_; in mad rage
rushing upon him with open mouth and yellow glistening teeth; rearing
around and above him, and striking down with deadly desperate hoof--Oh,
it was a horrid apprehension, a fearful fancy!
Yet, fearful as it was, it proved to be the exact shadow of a reality.
As the mirage refracts distant objects upon the retina of the eye, so
some spiritual mirage must have thrown upon my mind the image of things
that were real. Not distant, though then unseen--not distant was the
real.
Rapidly I ascended another swell of the prairie, and from its crest
beheld almost the counterpart of the terrible scene that my imagination
had conjured up!
Was it a dream? was it still fancy that was cheating my eyes? No; there
was the wild-horse drove; there the rearing, screaming stallions; there
the white steed in their midst--he too rearing erect--there upon his
back--
"O God! look down in mercy--save her! save her!"