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Read Ebook: Gifts of Genius: A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors by Osgood Samuel Author Of Introduction Etc
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Ebook has 1093 lines and 55725 words, and 22 pages
"You don't suppose whoever it was has stolen 'em?" suggested Scotty, to whose excited brain nothing seemed impossible.
"What, take three iron shod horses and me and Shaw not know it?" snorted Jennings. "It would be easier to have 'em run off with one of us."
"Just the same, I'm going down to see if they're all right," declared the recruit, moving away.
"Hold on. We'll go with you," whispered Shaw. "Being nervous, as they will, you may scare 'em--and we'd be in a pretty fix fifty miles from the Fort and no ponies."
And, placing the youngster between them, the veteran scouts crept cautiously down to the plateau, some fifteen yards from the boulder, where they had left the horses to feed on the sweet grass.
Already, the heavy darkness in the east was giving way to the grey-greens of dawn, enabling the three scouts to make out the outlines of the rocks and trees above them.
But, as they turned a crag whence they could get a glimpse of the plateau, they stopped in amazement.
Not a horse was to be seen!
"So they couldn't steal our ponies with you and Shaw 'round?" grinned Scotty.
"Keep your tongue in your head," growled Jennings. "That cry probably frightened 'em, and they've gone down the trail. Come on. It won't be hard to track them."
Again were the scouts destined to be surprised, however.
Though the steadily-increasing light enabled them to find the shoe-prints, where the animals had moved about during the night and those made when they entered the plateau, not a trace could they find indicating the direction of their departure!
With blank faces, the two veterans stared at one another.
As they stood in baffled perplexity, of a sudden, from above, there rang out a mocking laugh.
Whirling, Colts ready, the scouts looked up.
Outlined against the sky, stood a powerfully-built man, red of hair and beard, wearing a scarlet shirt.
"Red Rogers!" gasped Jennings and Shaw, in chorus.
Another jeering laugh greeted the exclamation, then with a defiant wave of his hand, the figure disappeared.
SCOTTY LEARNS SOMETHING ABOUT THE "SERVICE."
"No more mystery about what's become of our ponies," growled Shaw, giving relief to his feelings in a torrent of curses.
"You mean Red took them?" queried Jennings.
"My, but you're getting to be the quick little thinker."
"Well, if he did, I'd like to know the trick. Red's cute, I know, yet it's some stunt to get three horses up a mountain on a dark night without leaving any trail."
"Oh, we'll be able to learn how it was done when it gets lighter. Now, let's get back to the boulder before Red swipes our rifles, blankets and saddles while our backs are turned."
"Lot of good our saddles will do us now," grunted Jennings. "Red might as well have taken 'em."'
The silence of his comrades, deeply ashamed that they should have been tricked of their horses without even knowing it, gave Scotty the first chance to speak since the discovery of the man on the rock and he lost no time in making the most of it.
"But that can't be Red Rogers, he's in jail!" he exclaimed.
"What would he want of our horses, and how'd he know we were here anyway?" asked Scotty.
"Scented us," asserted Jennings, positively, answering the last question first. "I told you a good woodsman or an Injun can always scent a man--and Red Rogers can give any Injun or woodsman cards and spades and then beat him at his own game. As to why he took our ponies, he probably wanted 'em."
"I have it!" cried Shaw, slapping his thigh. "I'll bet Red has just broken jail. He's probably hiking it to his old hiding place, and, coming across our ponies, helped himself."
"But they're army horses. They'll be recognized by any one who sees 'em," objected the youngster.
"I suppose we ought to be thankful Red didn't need shooting irons, or he'd probably have helped himself to our rifles," exclaimed Jennings, as they found their weapons and blankets undisturbed.
"Oh, cut it out," retorted Shaw. "We'll have to stand enough joshing from the boys at the Fort, without your trying to get funny.
"Scotty, start a fire and put on the coffee pot--there's enough water in it."
And, while the youngster obeyed, the others rolled up their blankets.
"What are you going to do with the saddles and bridles?" asked Scotty, as he joined them.
"Leave 'em in the cave yonder, so's they'll be waiting when we get our horses back," declared Shaw, picking up his own and carrying it to a crevice in the rocks, some ten feet away, into which, after a short examination, he placed the now useless accoutrements.
"Then you're going to track Red?" asked the youngster, in surprise.
"That's what!" chimed in Shaw. "You're working for the honor of the Mounted Scouts now, not merely for Uncle Sam, Scotty. Remember, if you get done to death, there'll be another to take up the task from where you dropped."
This forceful explanation of the simple but unrelenting code of the Service impressed the youngster as nothing else could, and he grew silent in contemplation of the dangers entailed.
Of all the Outlaws who made the "Bad Lands" their hiding place, dashing forth to raid an isolated settlement, rob a bank or hold up a train, there was none whose name caused such terror or who had such a reputation for daredevil fearlessness as Red Rogers.
It had taken the Mounted Scouts three years of ceaseless trailing to run him down--and the presence of a full squad to effect his capture.
Indeed, his arrest had done more to inspire a wholesome respect for the Mounted Scouts in the breasts of desperadoes and renegade Indians than any other of their acts.
And here the notorious bandit was back in his old haunts after serving less than five years of his life sentence--and he had given notice of his liberty by running off with three horses belonging to his mortal enemies, from right under their very noses.
"How do you suppose he broke jail?" asked Scotty, as the three crest-fallen men squatted cross-legged about the fire eating their beans and sipping the coffee.
"We'll hear--if we ever see any one from the Fort again. But, I'll stake my saddle against a blanket pin he left a trail of blood if any one was in his way," responded Jennings.
This suggestion that they might never live to return from the pursuit sent Scotty's heart into his throat.
"If we ever see any one from the Fort?" he repeated in dismay. "Aren't we going back to get horses and reinforcements?"
Their eyes twinkling, the veterans looked at one another and laughed.
"Say, have you forgotten your 'rules and regulations' so quick?" demanded Shaw. "Don't you remember that only in 'cases of dire emergency may a scout give up a trail and return to the Fort?'" he added, drawling in imitation of the colonel when quizzing the recruits.
"Well, isn't this such an occasion?" returned the youngster.
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