The minutes flew rapidly; no sign of any Indians yet. The old hunter grew a little impatient.
“Consarn ’em!” he muttered, “why don’t they come? ’Pears to me they’re acting dreadful cautious. Ah!”
The exclamation was caused by something moving on the prairie far in the distance.
The hunter watched it attentively; it was too distant for him to distinguish distinctly what it was.
“Looks like a horse,” said Abe. “’Tain’t possible, though, ’cos if it were a stray horse, the Injuns would have gobbled it up long ago. I shall soon know, at any rate.”
Then the animal, coming on at a rapid pace, mounted one of the distant swells of the prairie and proved to be a large wolf. He came rapidly on, and at quite a distance scented the hunter and gave him a wide berth, sheering off to the north-west.
“Wonder if he wasn’t frightened by the Injuns, now?” questioned the hunter to himself; “’spect he was. Sho! what’s that?”
A little flock of ducks came flying over his head from down the river, evidently alarmed at something.
“That’s Injun sign, sure,” chuckled the “Crow-Killer”, and he again examined his revolver, making sure that the caps were down firm on the nipples.
“Now, then, old roan, I guess you and me’ll have a fight afore we’re an hour older,” said the hunter, addressing his horse as if he had been a human.