CAPTAIN DAN HEXKIE. 433 



away toward tte chain of mouBtains and wound about their 

 feet. All off to the left, and beyond this remarkable 

 mountain, seemed an interminable stretch of rolling prairies, 

 over which, amidst clumps of cactus, were scattered herds 

 of deer, mustangs and buffalo, in view at once. 



Dan has not much poetry in him, but he could not help 

 being both astonished and enchanted by the strange, wild 

 loveliness of this scene. He slid from his saddle, and stood 

 leaning against it for only a moment or two of wrapt 

 contemplation, when the habitual iristinct of watchfulness, 

 peculiar to the Ranger, caused biTn to change hia position, 

 and turn his head. As he did so he perceived one of the 

 droves of mustangs (wild horses,) moving slowly towards 

 him. They were a long way off, and there appeared nothing 

 peculiar about them — ^but it served to remind him that he 

 had a short time before seen the unshod tracks of horses and 

 mules moving at a gaUop, — or that, though they might be 

 nothing more than mustangs, yet the simple fact of their 

 going at a gaUop, was in itself suspicious of another fact or 

 60 — either that they were the tracks of Indian horses and 

 mules, or of mustangs that had been chased or otherwise 

 frightened by them ; so that whatever of enchantment there 

 may have been for him in the scene, it now gave place 

 quickly to caution, and his head turned rapidly from side 

 to side, with the habitual manner of the old spy. 



His eye now and then fell upon the advancing drove, but 

 not with any consciously defined suspicion. At length they 

 disappeared slowly down a long valley, like the sway of the 

 prairie undulations, and were out of sight so long that he 

 had quite forgotten them, when suddenly they appeared 

 again on this side, moving directly towards him, at a swift 

 gallop. He bounded into his saddle as quick as thought, 

 supposing that, may be, one or two Indians who were 

 mustang-hunting, had lain in wait for this herd, in the deep 

 grass of that prairie valley, and were now chasing them with 



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