The settler, with flashing eyes and close-set teeth, continued his course, picking up the trail with tolerable ease for one so little versed in the art as he was. He knew, by the position of the hoof-prints—they being planted one in a place, from eight to ten feet apart—that at this point Mark Haley had been advancing rapidly, at a gallop. In trotting, there would be two hoof-prints close together, one almost obliterated by the other, or, just the same as made while in a walk, save of larger stride. Hawksley, by this fact, could guess pretty closely at the speed maintained by the abductor, and though he knew that his own progress was much slower, still he did not despair of overtaking the man. Doubly loaded, the fugitive must pause soon, if only to rest his horse. The sun was two hours high, when a sight met the father’s eye that caused a cold thrill to pervade his veins. For a moment he reeled in his saddle, and almost fell to the ground, but then, with pale face and starting eyeballs, he plunged spurs deep into his horse’s flanks, and dashed madly forward. A score or more dark, slowly-circling forms were hovering over the prairie directly before him, in close proximity to where the trail must lead, unless it swerved abruptly to one side or the other. The shadowy shapes were those of vultures, buzzards, crows—those filthy yet useful scavengers of the prairies. They told the experienced settler a significant tale. They told him that death was before him, along the trail. That they were collecting round a horrible feast that had been prepared for them. In his agony of fear, Hawksley believed that he was about to behold the dead and mangled remains of his child. Fearing this, with mad shouts he dashed forward, brandishing his arms wildly. The filthy birds heard him and in silence widened their circles, rising higher and higher, joined by others that rose heavily from the ground seemingly loth to quit the spot. A brace of coyotes slunk away, howling lugubriously, with drooping tail and snarling teeth. A heart-sickening sight lay before him, as he mechanically wrenched his horse to a standstill. A groan of agonized apprehension broke from his pallid lips as he reeled rather than sprung from his saddle. One glance was all that he could give—then he sunk to the ground, bowing his head upon his knees, shuddering convulsively, like one suddenly stricken with a chill. The horrible truth seemed plain to him—he believed that before him lay strewn the remains of Fannie, his child. The greensward was trampled and torn, stained here and there with crimson blotches that showed where veins had been drained of their life-blood. Around were scattered white and gleaming bones, already dismembered and clean-picked by the teeth of coyotes and beaks of birds. Tattered and torn, he saw a bright, particolored patchwork quilt that he knew had covered his daughter’s bed. Further to one side was a fragment of her dress, also blood-stained.