Picking it up for the third time, he
held it daintily in the palm of his left hand, and with the fingers of
his right plucked off the flesh and put it in his mouth.
When we were making our beds ready for the night, Vic, whom we had
forgotten in the exciting events of the evening, trotted into camp and
laid a horseshoe in Henry's lap. The lad took it up, and exclaimed:
"One of Chiquita's shoes!--a left hind shoe!"
"How do you know?" I asked.
"Private Sattler always shaped the heel of the left shoe like this, to
correct a fault in her gait."
"May I look at the shoe, sergeant?" asked Corporal Duffey,
approaching from the group of men near the guard's fire. "Shoes are
like hand-writing--no two blacksmiths make them alike. I am a
blacksmith by trade, and know all the shoes made by the smiths of our
regiment. This," examining it, "is one of Sattler's. He put a
side-weight on it, and here is the bevel-mark of his hammer."
"Then our ponies have certainly passed here, and Vic was on their
trail when we saw her coming from the Tanks," remarked Frank; "but
there could have been no scent after so long a time.
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