But if Falconnet
and his following had ridden neither up nor down the bed of the barrier
stream, it seemed equally certain that no horse of the troop had crossed
it. The Indian trace, which held straight on up the gorge and presently
came out above into a high upland valley, was unmarked by any hoof
print, new or old.
"Well, now; I'll be daddled if this here ain't about the beatin'est
thing I ever chugged up ag'inst," was the old borderer's comment, when
we had flogged our wits to small purpose in the search for some clue to
the mystery. "What's your mind about it, hey, Chief?"
Uncanoola shook his head. "Heap plenty slick. No go up-stream, no go
down, no cross over, no go back. Mebbe go up like smoke--w'at?"
The hunter shook his head and would by no means admit the alternative.
"Ez I allow, that would ax for a merricle; and I reckon ez how when the
good Lord sends a chariot o' fire after sech a clanjamfrey as this'n o'
the hoss-captain's, it'll be mighty dad-blame' apt to go down 'stead of
up."
We were standing on the brink of the barrier stream no more than a
fisherman's cast from the black rock-mouth that spewed it up from its
underground maw. While the hunter was speaking, the Catawba had lapsed
into statue-like listlessness, his gaze fixed upon the eddying flood
which held the secret of the vanished cavalcade. Suddenly he came alive
with a bound and made a quick dash into the water. What he retrieved was
only a small piece of wood, charred at one end.
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