Page:Edward Ellis--Alden the Pony Express Rider.djvu/296

 It is a difficult but not impossible task to trail a horse by night. To do it, however, requires the finest woodcraft. That wonderful scout Kit Carson performed the exploit many times, when he had neither the moon nor stars to aid him. First locating the trail, he reasoned out the point for which his enemies were making. His familiarity with the country and his intimate knowledge of the red men were rarely at fault. It might be some river crossing a dozen miles away. Paying no further attention to the trail, the pursuer hurried to the ford, where by passing his hands over the earth he learned whether the hoof-prints were there. If so, and as I have said he seldom missed it, he decided the next most likely point for which the fugitives were heading, when he took up the pursuit and pressed it as before. More than once by this remarkable strategy he reached a certain place ahead of the Indians and ambushed them when they came up.

But such exploits make an accurate knowledge of the country indispensable. Alden Payne was a stranger in a strange land, beside which his experience was not to be compared with that of the peerless scout and mountaineer