He was then checked to a pace corresponding to theirs; while his rider, leaning forward, listened with an eagerness that evinced some terrible determination.
His attitude proclaimed him in the vein for vituperation of the rudest kind—ready with ribald tongue; or, if need be, with knife and pistol!
His behaviour depended on a contingency—on what might be overheard.
As chance, or fate, willed it, there was nothing.
If the two equestrians were insensible to external sounds, their steeds were not so absorbed. In a walk the chestnut stepped heavily—the more so from being fatigued. His footfall proclaimed his proximity to the sharp ears, both of the blood-bay and spotted mustang; that simultaneously flung up their heads, neighing as they did so.
Calhoun was discovered.
“Ha! cousin Cash!” cried the lady, betraying more of pique than surprise; “you there?
Where’s father, and Harry, and the rest of the people?”
“Why do you ask that, Loo?
I reckon you know as well as I.”
“What! haven’t you come out to meet us?
And they too—ah! your chestnut is all in a sweat!
He looks as if you had been riding a long race—like ourselves?”
“Of coarse he has.
I followed you from the first—in hopes of being of some service to you.”
“Indeed!
I did not know that you were after us.
Thank you, cousin!
I’ve just been saying thanks to this gallant gentleman, who also came after, and has been good enough to rescue both Luna and myself from a very unpleasant dilemma—a dreadful danger I should rather call it.
Do you know that we’ve been chased by a drove of wild steeds, and had actually to ride for our lives?”
“I am aware of it.”
“You saw the chase then?”
“No.
I only knew it by the tracks.”
“The tracks!
And were you able to tell by that?”
“Yes—thanks to the interpretation of Zeb Stump.”
“Oh! he was with you?
But did you follow them to—to—how far did you follow them?”
“To a crevasse in the prairie.
You leaped over it, Zeb said.
Did you?”
“Luna did.”
“With you on her back?”
“I wasn’t anywhere else!
What a question, cousin Cash! Where would you expect me to have been? Clinging to her tail?
Ha! ha! ha!” “Did you leap it?” inquired the laugher, suddenly changing tone. “Did you follow us any farther?”
“No, Loo.
From the crevasse I came direct here, thinking you had got back before me.
That’s how I’ve chanced to come up with you.”
The answer appeared to give satisfaction.
“Ah!
I’m glad you’ve overtaken us.
We’ve been riding slowly.
Luna is so tired. Poor thing!
I don’t know how I shall ever get her back to the Leona.”
Since the moment of being joined by Calhoun, the mustanger had not spoken a word.
However pleasant may have been his previous intercourse with the young Creole, he had relinquished it, without any apparent reluctance; and was now riding silently in the advance, as if by tacit understanding he had returned to the performance of the part for which he had been originally engaged.
For all that, the eye of the ex-captain was bent blightingly upon him—at times in a demoniac glare—when he saw—or fancied—that another eye was turned admiringly in the same direction.
A long journey performed by that trio of travellers might have led to a tragical termination.