The first time Magoosh came to the Llano Estacado (in late October of 1857) he had only heard stories about the region from the tribe's elders and from the Mescalero Apache trader Platta. Platta had indicated the Lipan might find a better life in the Sacramento Mountains in New Mexico west of the Pecos River. For the last 10 years or so Magoosh's people had been hiding out in the canyonlands of the Pecos and Devil River desplobado (rugged country with limited resources), and Magoosh took on himself to see for himself what the Mescalero homeland looked like.
He had gone with Castellito to hunt buffalo along the Concho, and after they had met the Bartlett Boundary Survey wagon train, he had gone on alone. He first went to visit the old Lipan homeland around Mushaway Peak near the headwaters of the Colorado River, where Ipa had led the people who became the Lipans in the 1720s. He traveled at night and slept during the day to avoid running into Comanches.
After spotting campfires from Comanche camps at the confluence of Grape Creek and the Colorado River from West Gunsight Mountain, he had to give up his hopes of spending a night on Mushaway. Magoosh instead turned west-northwest and headed for the upper end of the main branch of the Colorado. What he saw there at that time has long since disappeared - at that time there were big old mesquites along the edges of a big alkali sacaton cienaga. Nearby was a thicket of younger mesquite bushes, which had germinated (and fertilized) in horse droppings after wild horses had overgrazed the area around the cienaga. (Now the watercourse of the river has steep-walled bluffs with narrow arroyos feeding into the main watercourse. Some of the big mesquites are still present, but are mostly dead. The thickets of mesquite have increased.) The edge of the Llano Estacado was just a few miles to the west.
As the dawn began, he headed for the thickest thicket of mesquite and went to sleep after staking out his horse in a patch of sideoats grama so it could graze. Throughout the thicket were large packrat nests - some of them 4 feet tall and 5 feet across. Several of the nests had been demolished by something wanting what the packrats stored (animal droppings, sticks, mesquite beans and so on) - or maybe by something wanting to eat the packrats themselves. The mesquite still had leaves, so he was well hidden. When he awoke and went for his horse, it was gone, stake, rope and all.
"A Comanche might have got it, or some of the wild horses came by, and it just jerked the stake out so it could follow," he thought and looked for evidence of either theory. As he searched during that late afternoon he noticed a bank of clouds on the northern horizon, and when he saw that he knew the first blue norther of the winter would hit within the hour. Giving up the search for the horse he headed for a southfacing bluff of the Llano where he could see overhanging rock ledges just large enough for him to build a small fire and be out of the falling snow (if it snowed.)
After he gathered a good supply of old juniper wood from the hillside near the overhangs and got a little fire going, the cold wind began to bluster and by the time the sun had gone, snow was falling from a low gray sky. The large flakes flew by almost on a horizontal plane and then swirled and dropped among the nearby junipers, littleleaf sumac and agarita. He gnawed on some of the fresh jerky from the buffalo hunt and sat glowering into the night - he was not a happy camper.
Halfway through the night he heard horses whinnying not far away. "That has to be the wild horses come to seek the shelter of this bluff," Magoosh guessed. He sat, visualizing their shivering forms, their head down, leaning up against junipers for protection. He also visualized his horse with them. The play of light on his closed eyelids from his little fire gave life to the visualization, he decided, so he sat letting his imagination play. Every few minutes he would add another stick to the fire and then close his eyes again.
The snow fell all night in big flakes but never as heavily as in the first blast. As the day's light began to give form to the world, he stood and stretched. The snow quit falling by the time he could clearly make out his surroundings. He snuffed out his fire and still wearing his saddle blanket for warmth he slowly eased toward the wild horses. He could make out the plumes of their breath in the cold air. About 3 inches of very wet snow had fallen, so he could walk silently, or so he thought. Five horses suddenly stampeded and bolted down into the valley - and he saw his horse in the little group, trailing the rope.
He retreated to his campsite and sat shivering, not willing to light a fire that would show the Comanches someone was in the neighborhood. By midmorning the sky began to clear, the western skies first. A strong west-southwest wind swept all of the clouds away by noon and the snow quickly melted except for where it was in shadow. He climbed to the top of the bluff, to look off to the east - and far in the distance he could see the smoke from the Comanche camps. He watched for an hour and saw no movement heading in his direction. He could not spot the horses in the valley. After another hour Magoosh spotted four horses in the cienaga drinking - but his horse was not with them. But you can tell him where his pony is - by using the clues in the story.
It will help to go back and re-read the story, maybe even more than once.