CHAPTER VIII

THE TRACK OF THE MARKED HOOF

"WHAT'S gone wrong, Roger?"

"Our packhorse has disappeared in the night; I've looked high and low for him, Dick, but it's no use."

"Did you hobble him the way we had the other animals fixed?" asked the other lad.

"Yes, but you know he always had a habit of straying farther than either of the riding horses; and the chances are he's gone so far now that he doesn't know the way back. What will we do about it, Dick; wait over and spend the best part of a day looking for him; or divide up the stuff, and get on?"

Impatient Roger undoubtedly would be for the latter method of solving the question, if left to his own devices. He was already tired of the slow progress they seemed to have been making in all these weeks they had been on the go.

"Well, in the first place," began Dick, "we ought to make some sort of a hunt for the packhorse. We've managed to keep him with us so far, after some narrow shaves, and it would be a great pity to let him go just because we didn't want to take the trouble to look him up."

"But," objected the other, "he may be miles away from here by now."

"Very well, Roger; if we find that such is the case we can give the hunt up, and do the next best thing. But let's start out, and see where his tracks lead."

"But how are we to know which are the tracks of the led animal, Dick?" queried Roger. "Horses' hoofs are pretty much the same, seems to me."

"Well, yes, as a rule that is so," came the reply, with a confident smile; "but in this case it happens that old Peter had a chip knocked from the outside edge of his off hind hoof, which always left a mark I could tell. I've noticed it about a hundred times, and always thought that, if the old stray ever did get away, from us, with the stuff on his back, we could easily follow his trail."

"It takes you to notice all those things, Dick; and yet I have a good pair of eyes, too," observed Roger, thoughtfully.

"As good as mine, and perhaps better, Roger; but the trouble is you seldom use them as much as you might. But come, let us start out and see what there is to be found. And look for the track with the outer edge sheared off."

The two boys had been in camp in a little depression on the bank of the river, which they had reached on the preceding afternoon.

At the time, the day had not been so far advanced but that they could have gone a few miles farther; but as soon as Dick had seen this camping place he had surprised and partly dismayed the eager Roger by expressing a desire to put in the night there.

The reason for this became manifest later on, when he showed his companion unmistakable signs to prove that the expedition they were following had, in fact, tied up there for the night. There were numerous indications to prove this--tracks of white men's shoes, and the moccasins of the guides and trappers accompanying the soldiers; as well as the hoof prints of the horses.

Of course, when he learned this fact Roger was reconciled to wasting a little of their precious time. He knew that they could discover a variety of things while camping in the same place that those who preceded them had occupied.

And, after a careful examination of the signs, with a remembrance of the fact that quite a heavy rain had fallen two weeks before, which would have washed away any tracks made before its coming, both boys were convinced that the expedition must have camped here after that storm.

This was most important to the boys. It assured them that they had gained remarkably on Captain Lewis and his company, who had had such a long start of them. If the expedition had been here within two weeks, their chances of overtaking it were excellent. Perhaps in another week, or two at least, they might expect to come upon the boats.

That anticipation had made Roger unusually cheerful all through the preceding night. Indeed, he even found difficulty in sleeping, and had been on his feet numerous times after they lay down in their blankets under the shelter of the tent.

And now a new source of trouble had come upon them. Old Peter, the packhorse, had a habit of wandering off; and on several other occasions Roger had been compelled to hunt for him in the morning; but this time he seemed to have disappeared for good.

Of course both lads took their rifles with them when leaving camp. In those early days, when one's life often depended on prompt action, and also on having the means of defence handy, men and boys never neglected to keep their firearms where they could lay a hand on them at a second's warning. Even when they slept, Dick and his cousin kept their guns close by, with a protecting arm generally thrown over them, for they looked upon these weapons as their best, indeed only, friends in this wild country.

It took Dick but a minute or two to circle around just outside the camp, and find the track of the broken hoof. Just as he expected, it soon began to edge away from camp. Old Peter was evidently up to his tricks again, and the grass must have seemed sweeter to him the further he could roam away from the spot where the tent had been pitched.

They followed the trail for a few minutes. Then Dick came to a pause, and, screening his eyes with his hand, looked keenly around.

"See any sign of the old rascal?" asked Roger.

"I must say I don't," came the answer; "and, to tell the truth, I hardly like the idea of wandering so far away from camp. While we are gone some one might come along and steal everything we own--horses, outfit and all."

"That would be a tough deal for us, Dick," remarked the other; "and for one I don't think it would pay us to take the chance for the sake of such an old horse as Peter. But what shall we do?"

"Go back and get our breakfast," answered Dick, promptly, as though he had been making up his mind while they hunted for the tracks; "then, if he doesn't show up, we can load the stuff on both our horses, and start out."

"But that would be a pretty uncomfortable way of doing, I'd say," objected Roger, who did not like the thought of riding perched on top of the folded tent, and with all manner of other things around him.

"Oh! I don't mean to try it long," the other hastened to reply. "You see, it happens that the trail leads up-river, so we could keep on following it, and not leave our stuff unprotected. Then, if we found Peter, it would be all right; and, on the other hand, if we didn't, and had to give him up, I've a notion we'd better get rid of a few things like the tent, and go on our journey lighter."

"It is pretty old, for a fact, and clumsy, too. When that Indian brave sold the tent to us, he played a smart trick, for the skins had been exposed so long to sun and rain and wind that they were getting weak. I won't be sorry to see the old affair kicked out. We're used to sleeping on the ground, and if it rains we can make a shelter out of branches, or find a hole in the rocks."

"Perhaps a hollow tree," added Dick, laughingly, as they turned back toward camp.

"Oh, well, in that case we'll try to make sure it doesn't happen to be the den of a bear," observed the other. "Every time I think of that fellow about to drop down on us, it gives me the shivers."

On reaching the camp they hurried preparations for breakfast. It was always a simple meal, consisting of some meat or fish, cooked over the small fire they had burning, and a dish of tea, of which both boys happened to be very fond. Coffee in those early days was almost an unknown luxury among the Western pioneers along the Missouri.

When they had partaken of this frugal but satisfying meal, the boys started to take down the skin tent which had been the subject of Roger's remarks. It was an old Indian lodge, and, while the figures of animals and hunting scenes that once decorated its sides were pretty well faded, enough remained to interest the boys from time to time, and cause more or less speculation as to what they were intended to represent.

After they had managed to load all their possessions on the backs of the two riding horses, much to the surprise of the animals, they said good-by to their night's camp, and once more started off, heading into the northwest, and following the river.

Thus far much of their journey had been over the level plains, although from time to time they had been in the country of hills and forests, as well as rocky sections.

It happened that they were just then in a region where the woods came down to the banks of the river; and in the open places grew the grass upon which the hobbled horses had fed during the night.

Neither of the boys thought to climb into their saddles while following the marked trail of the missing packhorse; indeed, that would have been next door to an impossibility, with all those traps piled high on the animals' backs. They walked along ahead of the horses, keeping their eyes for the most part on the trail.

"The old sinner, to think that he'd wander all this way from where the others put in the night," Roger remarked, when they had kept on for almost ten minutes.

"Still, he doesn't show up ahead, as far as I can see," Dick observed, "and, if we fail to sight him soon, we'll have to say good-by to Peter, because he's beginning to bear away from the river, and we don't want to spend a whole day looking for a poor old packhorse which we'd soon lose, I reckon, anyway, when we get in the region of the hostile Indians."

He had hardly said this when he threw up his hand.

"Stop a minute, Roger," said Dick, bending down, as though he had made a discovery that aroused his deepest interest.

"What have you found--did Peter break his hobble rope? For I notice you have picked up a piece of it, Dick."

"Look closer, and you will see that it has been cut by something sharp, which I should say must have been a knife," the other went on, hurriedly, yet with conviction in his voice; "and, Roger, we might as well make up our minds that Peter is gone for good, because here are the imprints of moccasins in the soft earth; an Indian must have run across our packhorse, and carried him off!"