total loss. Three times we found blood, once in quite a splash.
Occasionally even Curley was at fault for a few moments; but in general
he moved forward at a rapid walk.

"This Curley person is all right," observed Windy Bill after a while, "I
was brung up to find my way about, and I can puzzle out most anywhere a
critter has gone and left a sign; but this yere Curley can track a
humming bird acrost a granite boulder!"

After a little while Curley stopped for us to catch up.

"Seems to me no manner of doubt but what he's headed for Cockeye," he
said. "There ain't no other place for him to go out this way. I reckon I
can pick up enough of this trail just riding along. If we don't find no
sign at Cockeye, we can just naturally back track and pick up where he
turned off. We'll save time that-away, and he's had plenty of time to
get thar and back again."

So Curley mounted and we rode on at a walk on the horse trail that led
up the broad, shallow wash that came out of Cockeye.

Curley led, of course. Then rode Buck Johnson and Watkins and myself. I
had horned in on general principles, and nobody kicked. I suppose they
thought my general entanglement with this extraordinary series of events
entitled me to more than was coming to me as ordinary cow hand. For a
long time we proceeded in silence. Then, as we neared the hills, Buck
began to lay out his plan.

"When we come up on Cockeye," he was explaining, "I want you to take a
half dozen men or so and throw around the other side on the Cochise