They all came down to the house, had dinner together, chatted and cracked jokes, and not a word was said about the immediate trouble.

They were all "punchers," had worked together, knew each other's affairs, etc., etc.

The one party was about to send the other to the penitentiary, or perhaps the gallows; but you would have thought it was only a pleasant gathering of long-separated friends.

The two rustlers were lodged in the county jail, quickly broke out, and soon afterwards died in their "boots," one at the hands of the sheriff.
For tracking jail-breakers Indians, Navajoes or Apaches were sometimes employed, and the marvellous skill they showed was simply astonishing and inexplicable; all done by reading the "sign" left by the escaping party, but "sign" often quite unnoticeable to the white man.

Indeed, an Indian would follow a trail by sign much as a hound will do by scent.
Talking of scent, the homing instinct of horses and cattle is very wonderful and mysterious; but it is not generally known that a horse has also great power of scent.