"See, señores, the land lies so...." Hilario Trinfan's crooked body pulled together in a lopsided perch as he squatted range fashion beside the morning campfire. He had smoothed a space of ground the width of his two hands and was setting out twigs and stones to create a miniature relief map of the countryside. "Here is the water hole to which the Pinto comes. Above that we were--moving in from this side. To do so we crossed here." A black-rimmed nail stabbed into the dust.
"It is then we see the tracks--five ahead--all shod horses, but not ridden, save for one."
"Apaches could have been running them," Drew commented.
"No." Trinfan shook his head. "This far from pursuit the Apaches would not have moved so. The Indio, he eats horseflesh. There would have been signs of a fire. Or one of the animals cut down. These horses were being moved with care--not pushed too hard. We trailed them on to here." Hilario stabbed his finger into the dust again. "Then--Teodoro, now tell them what you saw."
The younger mustanger hung over the crude map. "I climbed, _señores_, up over the rocks. It is bad, that ground, high, steep--but with care one can reach a ledge. And along that one can go to look down into the next canyon. A good place for horses--there is water and grass. I stayed there watching with the glasses _Don_ Cazar gave my father, the glasses which bring the far close. There were poles set up in the rocks through which they brought those horses--making it like a pen we build for wild ones. But those in it were not wild."
"How many--an' what brands?" Anse wanted to know.
Teodoro shrugged. "There are many trees, rocks; one can not see everywhere. I counted twenty head--there is room for more. As to brands, even the glasses could not make those plain to the eyes of one lying above. But there is no other ranchero who would run horses on the Range and _Don_ Cazar's _manadas_ are not driven in here--does he want the wild ones to run off his mares? Horses would be kept so for only one reason, that they must be hidden. And in such a place as we found they could be left for maybe a month, or more. _Don_ Cazar's riders do not patrol this far away from the Stronghold. Had it not been that the Pinto causes so much trouble, even we would not be here."