The trail itself, dustless and packed hard, revealed nothing, but some five hundred yards beyond the ravine he discovered what he sought--here two wagons had turned sharply to the left, their wheels cutting deeply enough into the prairie sod to show them heavily laden.

With the experience of the border he was able to determine that these wagons were drawn by mules, two span to each, their small hoofs clearly defined on the turf, and that they were being driven rapidly, on a sharp trot as they turned, and then, a hundred feet further, at a slashing gallop.

Just outside their trail appeared the marks of a galloping horse.

A few rods farther along Keith came to a confused blur of pony tracks sweeping in from the east, and the whole story of the chase was revealed as though he had witnessed it with his own eyes.

They must have been crazy, or else impelled by some grave necessity, to venture along this trail in so small a party.