had lost us for a couple of hours. It is in good condition, too."

"How could it ever get here?" I exclaimed.

"Any one of a dozen ways," my uncle replied. "It may have run far that
stormy morning when it broke out of the corral, and possibly some party
coming over the Cimarron Trail picked it up and roved on this way. There
is no telling how it got here, since it keeps still itself about the
matter. Losing and finding and losing again is the law of events on the
plains."

"But why should it find us right here to-night, like it had been led
back?" I insisted.

"That's the miracle of it, Gail. It is always the strange thing that
really happens here. In years to come, if you ever tell the truth about
this trip, it will not be believed. When this isn't the frontier any
longer, the story of the trail will be accounted impossible."

Everything seemed impossible to me as I sat there staring at the dying
fire. Presently I remembered what I had seen while my uncle was away.

"Little Blue Flower has run away," I said, "and I saw the Mexican that
came to Fort Leavenworth the day before I twisted my ankle. He slipped
by here just a minute ago. I know, for I saw his face when the logs
flared up."

Esmond Clarenden gave a start. "Gail, you have the most remarkable
memory for faces of any child I ever knew," he said.