"Well, Old," he remarked, "I see you obeyed orders like a good sojer."
And then I saw what I had not noticed before: that at the belt of each of the tall, silent young backwoodsmen hung one or more wet, heavy, red and black soggy strips. The scalping had been no mere figure of speech! Thank heaven! none of our own people were similarly decorated!
So horrified and revolted was I at this discovery that I hardly roused myself to greet the men. I looked with aversion, and yet with a certain fascination on the serene, clear features of these scalp takers. Yet, since, in the days following, this aversion could not but wear away in face of the simplicity and straightforwardness of the frontiersmen, I had to acknowledge that the atrocious deed was more a product of custom than of natural barbarity.
Old Pine, of course not at all affected, bustled about in the more practical matter of getting coffee and cutting meat; and after a moment I aroused myself to help him. The men lay about on the ground exhausted. They drank the coffee and ate the meat, and so revived, little by little, arrived at the point of narration.
"It's sure one hell of a ride down there," remarked McNally with a sigh.
"Good deal like the foothills of th' Snake Range, pop," put in President Tyler Pine.
"We been riding purty nigh every minute sence we left here," agreed Bagsby. "That rancheree was hard to find."
Little by little the tale developed. No one man, in the presence of all the others, felt like telling us the whole story. We gathered that they had ridden the cañon for several hours, past our first camping grounds, and finally out into the lower ranges. Here they lost the trail left by the Indians when they had first visited our camp; but in casting in circles for it had come on fresher pony tracks. These they had followed persistently for many miles.
"_I_ couldn't see the sign of a track for a mile at a time, on that hard ground," interpolated Johnny.
At length the tracks had struck into a beaten trail.
"And then we knew we were on the way to the rancheree," said Bagsby.
The village they found located in a flat by the side of a stream, and they halted to determine just what to do. It was finally decided that while an attack on horseback would undoubtedly strike more instant terror, yet the difficulty of shooting accurately from a gallop would more than offset this effect. Therefore nine of the party crept up afoot, leaving three to lead forward the horses some distance in the rear.