At this point the trail ended — both horses, as was already known, having returned on their own tracks.

Before taking the back track, however, they had halted, and stayed some time in the same place — under the branches of a spreading cottonwood. The turf, much trampled around the trunk of the tree, was evidence of this.

The tracker got off his horse to examine it; and, stooping to the earth, carefully scrutinised the sign.

“They’ve been here thegither,” said he, after several minutes spent in his analysis, “and for some time; though neither’s been out of the saddle. They’ve been on friendly terms, too; which makes it all the more unexplainable. They must have quarrelled afterwards.”

“If you are speaking the truth, Spangler, you must be a witch. How on earth can you know all that?”

“By the sign, major; by the sign. It’s simple enough. I see the shoes of both horses lapping over each other a score of times; and in such a way that shows they must have been thegither — the animals, it might be, restless and movin’ about. As for the time, they’ve taken long enough to smoke a cigar apiece — close to the teeth too. Here are the stumps; not enough left to fill a fellow’s pipe.”

The tracker, stooping as he spoke, picked up a brace of cigar stumps, and handed them to the major.

“By the same token,” he continued, “I conclude that the two horsemen, whoever they were, while under this tree could not have had any very hostile feelins, the one to the tother. Men don’t smoke in company with the design of cutting each other’s throats, or blowing out one another’s brains, the instant afterwards. The trouble between them must have come on after the cigars were smoked out. That it did come there can be no doubt. As sure, major, as you’re sittin’ in your saddle, one of them has wiped out the other. I can only guess which has been wiped out, by the errand we’re on. Poor Mr Poindexter will niver more see his son alive.”

“’Tis very mysterious,” remarked the major.

“It is, by jingo!”

“And the body, too; where can it be?”

“That’s what purplexes me most of all. If ’t had been Indyins, I wouldn’t a thought much o’ its being missin’. They might a carried the man off wi them to make a target of him, if only wounded; and if dead, to eat him, maybe. But there’s been no Indyins here — not a redskin. Take my word for it, major, one o’ the two men who rid these horses has wiped out the other; and sartinly he have wiped him out in the litterlest sense o’ the word. What he’s done wi’ the body beats me; and perhaps only hisself can tell.”

“Most strange!” exclaimed the major, pronouncing the words with emphasis — “most mysterious!”

“It’s possible we may yet unravel some o’ the mystery,” pursued Spangler. “We must follow up the tracks of the horses, after they started from this — that is, from where the deed was done. We may make something out of that. There’s nothing more to be learnt here. We may as well go back, major. Am I to tell him?”

“Mr Poindexter, you mean?”

“Yes. You are convinced that his son is the man who has been murdered?”

“Oh, no; not so much as that comes to. Only convinced that the horse the old gentleman is now riding is one of the two that’s been over this ground last night — the States horse I feel sure. I have compared the tracks; and if young Poindexter was the man who was on his back, I fear there’s not much chance for the poor fellow. It looks ugly that the other rid after him.”

“Spangler! have you any suspicion as to who the other may be?”

“Not a spark, major. If’t hadn’t been for the tale of Old Duffer I’d never have thought of Maurice the mustanger. True, it’s the track o’ a shod mustang; but I don’t know it to be hisn. Surely it can’t be? The young Irishman aint the man to stand nonsense from nobody; but as little air he the one to do a deed like this — that is, if it’s been cold-blooded killin’.”

“I think as you about that.”

“And you may think so, major. If young Poindexter’s been killed, and by Maurice Gerald, there’s been a fair stand-up fight atween them, and the planter’s son has gone under. That’s how I shed reckon it up. As to the disappearance o’ the dead body — for them two quarts o’ blood could only have come out o’ a body that’s now dead — that trees me. We must follow the trail, howsoever; and maybe it’ll fetch us to some sensible concloosion. Am I to tell the old gentleman what I think o’t?”

“Perhaps better not. He knows enough already. It will at least fall lighter upon him if he find things out by piecemeal. Say nothing of what we’ve seen. If you can take up the trail of the two horses after going off from the place where the blood is, I shall manage to bring the command after you without any one suspecting what we’ve seen.”

“All right, major,” said the scout, “I think I can guess where the off trail goes. Give me ten minutes upon it, and then come on to my signal.”

So saying the tracker rode back to the “place of blood;” and after what appeared a very cursory examination, turned off into a lateral opening in the chapparal.

Within the promised time his shrill whistle announced that he was nearly a mile distant, and in a direction altogether different from the spot that had been profaned by some sanguinary scene.

On hearing the signal, the commander of the expedition — who had in the meantime returned to his party — gave orders to advance; while he himself, with Poindexter and the other principal men, moved ahead, without his revealing to any one of his retinue the chapter of strange disclosures for which he was indebted to the “instincts” of his tracker.

Before coming up with the scout, an incident occurred to vary the monotony of the march. Instead of keeping along the avenue, the major had conducted his command in a diagonal direction through the chapparal. He had done this to avoid giving unnecessary pain to the afflicted father; who would otherwise have looked upon the life-blood of his son, or at least what the major believed to be so. The gory spot was shunned, and as the discovery was not yet known to any other save the major himself, and the tracker who had made it, the party moved on in ignorance of the existence of such a dread sign.

The path they were now pursuing was a mere cattle-track, scarce broad enough for two to ride abreast. Here and there were glades where it widened out for a few yards, again running into the thorny chapparal.

On entering one of these glades, an animal sprang out of the bushes, and bounded off over the sward. A beautiful creature it was, with its fulvous coat ocellated with rows of shining rosettes; its strong lithe limbs supporting a smooth cylindrical body, continued into a long tapering tail; the very type of agility; a creature rare even in these remote solitudes — the jaguar.

Its very rarity rendered it the more desirable as an object to test the skill of the marksman; and, notwithstanding the serious nature of the expedition, two of the party were tempted to discharge their rifles at the retreating animal.

They were Cassius Calhoun, and a young planter who was riding by his side.

The jaguar dropped dead in its tracks: a bullet having entered its body, and traversed the spine in a longitudinal direction.

Which of the two was entitled to the credit of the successful shot? Calhoun claimed it, and so did the young planter.

The shots had been fired simultaneously, and only one of them had hit.

“I shall show you,” confidently asserted the ex-officer, dismounting beside the dead jaguar, and unsheathing his knife. “You see, gentlemen, the ball is still in the animal’s body? If it’s mine, you’ll find my initials on it — C.C. — with a crescent. I mould my bullets so that I can always tell when I’ve killed my game.”