Lone Wolf was not the redskin to allow such a formidable enemy as Sut Simpson to walk away unmolested, even though he had received an unexpected piece of magnanimity at his hands.  He had learned that it was he who had played such havoc among his warriors the day before, who had deceived them by cunningly uttered signals, and had drawn away the redskins sufficiently to permit his two intended victims to walk out of his clutches.  It had been a series of unparalleled exploits, the results of which would have exasperated the mildest tempered Indian ever known.

These thoughts were constantly in the mind of the scout as he picked out the path for his equine and human companions.  He took unusual pains, for a great deal depended upon his success in hiding the trail as much as possible.  Perhaps it is not correct to say that the Apaches could be thrown entirely off the scent, if they should set themselves to work to run the fugitives under cover.  None knew this better than Sut himself, but he knew also that the thing could be partially done, and a partial success could be made a perfect one.  That is, by adopting all the artifices at his command, the work of trailing could be rendered so difficult that it would be greatly delayed—­so that it would require hours for the Apaches to unearth the hiding-place.  And Sut meant to accomplish his self-imposed task during those few hours, so as to rejoin his friends, and resume their flight before the sharp-witted pursuers could overhaul them.

The journey, therefore, was made one of the most difficult imaginable.  The mustang was unshod, and yet he clambered up steep places, and over rocks, and through gravelly gullies, where the ordinary horse would have been powerless.  The animal seemed to enter into the spirit of the occasion and his performances again and again excited the wonder and admiration of Mickey and Fred. The creature had undergone the severest kind of training at the hands of an unsurpassed veteran of the frontier.

This laborious journeying continued for a couple of hours, during which it seemed to the man and lad that they passed over several miles of the roughest traveling they had ever witnessed.  The mustang had fallen several times, but he sprang up again like a dog and showed no signs of injury or fatigue.  Finally Sut made a halt, just as Mickey was on the point of protesting, and, turning about, so as to face his companions, he smiled in his peculiar way as he spoke.

“You’ve stood it pretty well for greenhorns, and now I’m going to give yer a good rest.”

“Do you maan to go into camp for a week or a month, or until the warm season is over?”

“I’m going to leave yer here, while I go for some hoss flesh, and it’ll take longer time than before.”

But the Irishman insisted that he should be allowed to accompany the scout upon this dangerous expedition.

“For the raison that ye are going to pick out this animal for me,” he added, “how do I know but what ye’ll pick out some ring-boned, spavined critter that trots sideways, and is blind in both eyes?”