Decidedly puzzled by all this, yet determined to solve the mystery and
unwilling to remain hidden there until night, Keith led his horse along
the slant of the ridge, until he attained a sharp break through the bluff
leading down into the valley. It was a rugged gash, nearly impassable, but
a half hour of toil won them the lower prairie, the winding path
preventing the slightest view of what might be meanwhile transpiring
below. Once safely out in the valley the river could no longer be seen,
while barely a hundred yards away, winding along like a great serpent, ran
the deeply rutted trail to Santa Fe. In neither direction appeared any
sign of human life. As near as he could determine from those distant
cottonwoods outlined against the sky, for the smoke spirals were too thin
by then to be observed, the spot sought must be considerably to the right
of where he had emerged. With this idea in mind he advanced cautiously,
his every sense alert, searching anxiously for fresh signs of passage or
evidence of a wagon train having deserted the beaten track, and turned
south. The trail itself, dustless and packed hard, revealed nothing, but
some five hundred yards beyond the ravine he discovered what he sought--
here two wagons had turned sharply to the left, their wheels cutting
deeply enough into the prairie sod to show them heavily laden. With the
experience of the border he was able to determine that these wagons were
drawn by mules, two span to each, their small hoofs clearly defined on the
turf, and that they were being driven rapidly, on a sharp trot as they
turned, and then, a hundred feet further, at a slashing gallop. Just
outside their trail appeared the marks of a galloping horse. A few rods
farther along Keith came to a confused blur of pony tracks sweeping in
from the east, and the whole story of the chase was revealed as though he
had witnessed it with his own eyes. They must have been crazy, or else
impelled by some grave necessity, to venture along this trail in so small
a party. And they were travelling west--west! Keith drew a deep breath,