"I dunno 's I could say, right offhand, what trail yuh mean," he parried.

"Every canyon 's got a trail that runs up a ways, and there's canyons all through the mountains; they all lead up to water, or feed, or something like that, and then quit, most gen'rally; jest peter out, like." And he added with heavy sarcasm, "A feller that's lived on the range oughta know what trails is for, and how they're made.
Cowcritters are curious-same as humans." To this Bud did not reply.

He was smoking and staring at the brushy lower slopes of the mountain ridge before them.

He had explained quite fully which trail he meant.

It was, as he had said, a "blind" trail; that is, the trail lost itself in the creek which watered a string of corrals.