They rode in
haste that night to a point well out upon the fresh trail of their fleeing
tribesmen, where the tracks came out of a barren, lava-encrusted hollow to
softer soil beyond. They summoned their squaws and their half-grown papooses
armed with branches that had stiff twigs and answered the purpose of brooms.
With great care about leaving any betraying tracks of their own until they
were quite ready to leave a trail, a party was formed to represent the six
whom the Happy Family bad been following. These divided and made off in
different directions, leaving a plain trail behind them to lure the white men
into the traps which would be prepared for them farther on.
When dawn made it possible to do so effectively, the squaws began to whip out
the trail of the six renegade Indians, and the chance footprints of those who
bad gone ahead to leave the false trail for the white men to follow. Very
painstakingly the squaws worked, and the young ones who could be trusted.
Brushing the sand smoothly across a hoofprint here, and another one there;
walking backward, their bodies bent, their sharp eyes scanning every little
depression, every faint trace of the passing of their tribesmen; brushing,
replacing pebbles kicked aside by a hoof, wiping out completely that trail
which the Happy Family bad followed with such persistence, the squaws did
their part, while their men went on to prepare the trap.
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