From the beginning, the outlaws were careless in leaving a trail, taking no pains to cover their tracks. Hawk figured they weren’t worried about anyone following them and probably thought it a good chance that no one would even know if the mule train of Quakers was missing. He had gone no farther than half a mile when the tracks struck an old trail. He figured it most likely an old Indian trail and the party he was tracking followed it. To make tracking easier, a light rain had fallen on the day of the massacre, or maybe the day after, and it helped to leave solid hoof imprints, especially where there was little grass. He rode on into midday over a treeless plain with the jagged peaks of the Rocky Mountains standing on the western horizon, never seeming to get closer. Water was scarce, so he was glad to see a line of trees after he estimated he had ridden close to thirty miles, about ten miles more than he liked to run his horse. Judging by the growth of trees and vegetation, he guessed that he was near a river. The trail he followed led toward the thickest part of the trees and then turned to follow the river west. It was plain to see that the men he followed had left the trail here and later returned to take it up again. So, he turned Rascal toward the water and rode down into the trees. As he anticipated, the remains of a campfire told him that the outlaws had stopped there as well. His immediate thought, after taking care of his horses, would have been to examine the ashes of the campfire to try to get an idea how far behind he was. This time, he didn’t bother, since he was so far behind them. “Nothin’ to do but keep ridin’,” he said to Rascal.

After his horse was rested, he started out again on the trail that now followed close beside the river, wondering if he might be taking on a pointless mission. If the outlaws didn’t hole up somewhere before much longer, he wasn’t confident that Conner and his patrol could ever catch up to him. Conner was not as inclined to abort a mission as Harvey Meade was, but Hawk realized there would come a time when Conner would deem it no longer advisable to continue a search without foreseeable results. These thoughts were interrupted when he spotted half a dozen buzzards circling overhead, so he nudged Rascal into a gentle lope.