"Wal, boys, here's game, sartin sure."

"What is it, Jerry?" inquired Hal.

"What is it? Why, a fresh Comanche trail; and 'tain't no war party,
neither, for they've got their lodges with 'em."

"How do you know that?" inquired Ned."

"How do you know you're settin' on that horse?" asked Jerry. "Why, I know
one just ez well ez you know t'other. Can't you see whar the ends of the
poles dragged in the dirt behind 'em. Anybody could see that, I should
think."

"How old is the trail, Jerry?" inquired I.

"That trail waz made afore eight o'clock this mornin'," was the answer.

"Before eight o'clock," sneered Hal. "Why don't you say that the
Comanches passed this spot at precisely seventeen minutes past six
o'clock this morning? You might just as well be particular, Jerry."

"Come, Jerry, tell us how you know when the Indians passed?" said I.

"Sartin I will," he good-humoredly replied. "Yer see we hed a purty hevy
dew last night, but the sun waz up so high that the grass waz all dry at
eight o'clock. Wall, now, if you'll look you'll see, that where the grass
was pressed down by the horses' feet into the earth, a little of the sand
stuck to it, (coz it waz damp), that has dried on since. Now if the trail
bed been made after eight o'clock, when the grass was dry, why, it