Adventure Magazine Cover, December 18, 1919 — page 103: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

¢ The Seven Cities of Cibola There was no need to tell Xicotl to hasten. He laid his water-bag across the saddle of the horse, shortened his grip on his macahuitl and swung up the hill at a long, loping wolf’s trot that ate up the miles. Behind him Andres strode swiftly, his long bow across his shoul- ders, leading the~horse. Behind him toiled Fray Marco, his cassock trussed up about his waist, in his hands an ax. Mile after mile they put behind them, crossing lines of grassy swales that stretched away, a gray plain under the rising moon. The first flush of the desert sun found them in the valley where Mercedes’ captors had halted for water. Andres began casting about the creek-bank for signs of a fire. “No need to look there, sejior. northern men use no fires when on a war trail. If they got water here it was to take it to their camp farther away. If they camped, it was on high ground, from which they could watch the high land behind them. Try the grass on the ‘hill-tops.” “How do you know that they will have crossed the creek here?” “Flying men run straight. These men have raided into a hostile country. They are returning swiftly to their own land. They will run straight. ¢erossed here—Ah! Here it is, sefor! You see I was right!” It was no more than a patch of trampled grass on a high knoll, the place where Mercedes had spent the first night in the hands of her savage captors, but it gave the direction. “Now we can pick up the trail at dawn. The next water is two days dis- tant. It is but a small pool which many ducks use.’’ All day the second day they traveled as rapidly as they could, but it was late on the third day when they came to the pool. Still there were no ashes to show that the pursued had rested and, but for ~ Xicotl, the search -would have ended there. “The horse must have trampled the edge,” said the puzzled Andres, hunting for hoof-marks in the soft earth. “They have probably never seen a horse, sevior, and know not that he must have feed and water or, having captured him, they do not care if he dies. Let us search farther back—Alli! The. They have | 89 Here it is, senores!” . They ran to him and saw a little heap of dried brown substance—no more! “A mouthful of dried meat that some one has spit out! Man does not waste food without a reason! Let me look further—Ah! Here!’ He picked from the trampled edge of the pond the fresh skin of a rabbit which one of the pursued had killed and eaten. “Most men make mistakes at times. They should have eaten the skin too! As I live, sevor, here is the hoof-mark of the red stallion again.” From that point on for four days the trail was easy to follow across the sandy plain, where the hoof-marks showed clear and distinct. Then they lost it, and for five days tracked the hoof-marks only © to find that the horse had been ridden out on one trail then back on the same tracks and had joined the main party again. This caused them to lose five days of straight travel. Time and again on hard ground they lost the trail entirely and had to _pa- tiently “‘cut trail” as it is now called. It» means holding on the last place where the tracks were seen and describ- ing a circumference about that point, then carefully examining every inch of that circumference to see where the tracks cross it. It is not easy. Any one but an Indian would have become discouraged. Xicotl kept at it with the pertinacity of a blood-hound and Andres, his skill and experience here of no value, watched him moodily as he cast about for a << son” During all those heart-breaking de- lays, only Fray Marco remained placid, but it was Fray Marco who carefully watched the water-bags, who mended the worn sandals, who cooked the scanty food when the tired men had flung them- selves panting to the ground for rest. “Patience, my friends, patience!’ he would say. “God is very good and the saints are kind. Sometimes they try our very souls for our own good, but they are always just.” “What justice is there, father, in let- ting a beautiful Christian lady fall into the hands of heathen savages?” Andres was nearly frantic, for even Xicotl was at fault. The Indian had CORMIGLOOO© S (E@)