Uncertain: Day 7

Word Count: 42,078

Summary of Events:

Joseph set out to find the Dirk children alone before sunrise and actually found footprints that were consistent with the size of small children's feet as well as a scent trail that led him westward, toward the mountains and Santa Fe. Hazel and the search party she'd rallied gathered and nearly 300 men were deemed ill-prepared by Mr. Waller and encouraged to remain behind while Hazel, Mr. Waller, his sons, and the 71 who were adequately prepared set out. Joseph was a ways into the mountains when Deputy discovered something of a campsite that appeared to have been used by the Dirk children, and he did some math to see if he could figure out about when they would've used it . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

It’d been about seven when he reached the creek. That was three hours at a walk, and a horse could travel about four miles in an hour at a walk, which made twelve miles, plus a good eight miles from town was twenty miles.

“That is a long way for two bitty kids,” Joseph said aloud. “Twenty miles? How long would that take two kids hardly past my hips to walk?”

Horses, naturally, because of their longer body, extra legs, and longer stride, could walk faster than people. In fact, Joseph had been told horses could walk twice as fast as people could do the same — both at a casual amble.

So then if a horse could walk four miles in an hour people could walk two. It would, thus, have taken a person about ten hours to walk twenty miles. Because Joseph had loped Tempest to the creek he’d gotten eight miles done in about a half an hour.

But when someone said horses could walk twice as fast as people they were thinking full-grown adults, not little kids. A little kid had half the stride of an adult at best. They had to only be able to walk a mile an hour — especially Teddy, as he was the younger one.

Joseph pulled out the photo again and looked for a date. He found it in handwriting on the back, along with some added, beneficial information: Felicity Alberta Dirk, aged 23; Ruby Bertha Dirk, aged 3; Thornton Edgar Dirk, aged 1; photographed September 1874.

Teddy was three years old. There was no way he was capable of walking at two miles an hour, and Ruby, being just five, wasn’t going to be likely to have the ability to carry him.

Unless they walked about ten miles — which would get them about to the edge of the mountains — in the night, rested a bit, and then walked the remaining ten during the day and then camped here their first night after leaving?

That made sense. What didn’t make sense, though, was how a boy named Thornton got the nickname Teddy. He’d thought the boy’s name was Edward or Theodore until he’d seen the writing on the back of the photograph.

He looked over the name, and then he noticed something: the capital letters of Thornton’s full name were TED. Ted. Thus Teddy. Definitely not the most usual way of coming up with a nickname.

Joseph shrugged and pocketed the picture again before getting back into the saddle and looking around. Where had Deputy gone?

“Deputy!” he shouted, then whistled.

In moments Deputy appeared out of the bush a ways away. He appeared to be eating something.

“What is–” Joseph started to ask, then he realised what it was. “That is downright disgusting dog!”

Although he wasn’t going to deny it was physical evidence that two little children had stopped here for the night after having trekked twenty miles away from home.