Not even Applehead suspected that the Indian had led a pony carefully down
into a draw, keeping the buildings always between himself and the party of
white men; nor that he watched them while they spread out beyond the
cultivated patch of irrigated ground until they picked up the trail of the six
horses, when they closed the gaps between them and followed the trail straight
away into the parched mesa that was lined with deep washes and canons and
crossed with stony ridges where the heat radiated up from the bare rocks as
from a Heating stove when the fire is blazing within. When they rode away
together, the Indian ran back into the draw, mounted his pony and lashed it
into a heavy, sure-footed gallop.
CHAPTER XIII. SET AFOOT
The tracks of the six horses led down into a rock-bottomed arroyo so deep in
most places that all view of the surrounding mesa was shut off completely,
save where the ragged tops of a distant line of hills pushed up into the
dazzling blue of the sky. The heat, down here among the rocks, was all but
unbearable; and when they discovered that no tracks led out of the arroyo on
the farther side, the Happy Family dismounted and walked to save their horses
while they divided into two parties and hunted up and down the arroyo for the
best trail.
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