And these, mind you, were the squaws and bucks whom you might meet any day on the streets in Albuquerque, padding along the pavement and staring in at the shop windows, admiring silken gowns with marked-down price tags, and exclaiming over flaxen-haired dolls and bright ribbon streamers; squaws and bucks who brought rugs and blankets to sell, and who would bargain with you in broken English and smile and nod in friendly fashion if you spoke to them in Spanish or paid without bickering the price they asked for a rug. You might see them in the fifteen-cent store, buying cheap candy and staring in mute admiration at all the gay things piled high on the tables. Remember that, when I tell you what more they did out here in the wilderness. Remember that and do not imagine that I am trying to take you back into the untamed days of the pioneers.
Luck and the Happy Family--so well had the squaws done their work--passed unsuspectingly over the wiped-out trail, circled at fault on the far side of the rocky gulch for an hour or so and then found the false trail just as the Indian decoys had intended that they should do. And from a farther flat topped ridge a group of Indians with Dutch hair-cuts and Stetson hats and moccasins (the two hall-marks of two races) watched them take the false trail, and looked at one another and grinned sourly.
The false trail forked, showing that the six had separated into two parties of three riders, each aiming to pass--so the hoofprints would lead one to believe--around the two ends of a lone hill that sat squarely down on the mesa like a stone treasure chest dropped there by the gods when the world was young.
The Happy Family drew rein and eyed the parting of the ways dubiously.
"Wonder what they did that for?" Andy Green grumbled, mopping his red face irritatedly. "We've got trouble enough without having them split up on us.""From the looks, I should say we're overhauling the bunch," Luck hazarded.
"They maybe met on the other side of this butte somewhere. And the tracks were made early this morning, I should say. How about it, Applehead?""Well, they look fresher 'n what we bin follerin' before," Applehead admitted.
"But I don't like this here move uh theirn, and I'm tellin' yuh so. The way--""I don't like anything about 'em," snapped Luck, standing in his stirrups as though that extra three inches would let him see over the hill. "And I don't like this tagging along behind, either. You take your boys and follow those tracks to the right, Applehead. I and my bunch will go this other way. And RIDE! We can't be so awfully much behind. If they meet, we'll meet where they do. If they scatter, we'll have to scatter too, I reckon. But get'em is the word, boys!""And where," asked Applehead with heavy irony, while he pulled at his mustache, "do yuh calc'late we'll git t'gether agin if we go scatterin' out?"Luck looked at him and smiled his smile. "We aren't any of us tenderfeet, exactly," he said calmly. "We'll meet at the jail when we bring in our men, if we don't meet anywhere else this side. But if you land your men, come back to that camp where we lost the horses. That's one, place we KNOW has got grass and water both. If you come and don't see any sign of us, wait a day before you start back to town. We'll do the same. And leave a note anchored in the crack of that big bowlder by the spring, telling the news. We'll do the same if we get there first and don't wait for you." He hesitated, betraying that even in his eagerness he too dreaded the parting of the ways. "Well, so long, boys--take care of yourselves.""Well, now, I ain't so dang shore--" Applehead began querulously.
But Luck only grinned and waved his hand as he led the way to the south on the trail that obviously had skirted the side of the square butte. The four who went with him looked back and waved non-committal adieu; and Big Medicine, once he was fairly away, shouted back to them to look out for Navvies, and then laughed with a mirthless uproar that deceived no one into thinking he was amused. Pink and Weary raised their voices sufficiently to tell him where he could go, ,and settled themselves dejectedly in their saddles again.
"Well, I ain't so darned sure, either," Lite Avery tardily echoed Applehead's vague statement, in the dry way he had of speaking detached sentiments from the mental activities that went on behind his calm, mask-like face and his quiet eyes. "Something feels snaky around here today."Applehead looked at him with a glimmer of relief in his eyes, but he did not reply to the foreboding directly. "Boys, git yore rifles where you kin use 'em quick," be advised them grimly. "I kin smell shootin' along this dang trail."Pink's dimples showed languidly for a moment, and be looked a question at Weary. Weary grinned answer and pulled his rifle from the "boot" where it was slung under his right leg, and jerked the lever forward until a cartridge slid with a click up into the chamber; let the hammer gently down with his thumb and laid the gun across his thighs.
"She's ready for bear," he observed placidly.
