CAPTAIN DAN HENRIE. 433 
‘away toward the chain of mountains 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 instinct of watchfulness, 
peculiar to the Ranger, caused him to change his 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 gallop,—or that, though they might be 
‘nothing more than mustangs, yet the simple fact of their 
going at a gallop, was in itself suspicious of another fact or 
so—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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