“How brave you are! How brave you are!” murmured the girl, in untold admiration. “Oh, Dick, I can’t believe it now.”
“It was not such a brave thing, after all,” he said. “I suppose most people would call it folly. But I had to do it. Why, old Joe saved my life a dozen times when I used to hunt with him years ago. He loved me as a father might love a son. You see it was impossible for me to keep still and see him murdered. I had to do something to save him. He can hide like a gopher on the open plain.”
“But Abe, Dick—Abe?”
“I saw Crowfoot snatch him up as he ran. We must leave Abe to old Joe.”
“Listen, Dick! Are they pursuing us?”
“We have the start on them, Felicia, and I don’t believe they will be able to overtake us if they try it.”
Through the night they rode. At the first opportunity Dick turned from his course and doubled in a manner intended to baffle the pursuers.
“It will be a long pull back to Bart and the others, Felicia,” he said; “but I think we can make it all right. For all of the time I have spent at school, I have not forgotten the lessons taught me by Crowfoot when I was a mere kid. He taught me to set my course by the stars, the wind, the trees, by a score of things. To-night our guide shall be the stars.”
Brad Buckhart was worried and troubled greatly over Dick’s long absence, and was on guard where they had camped as night fell. The Texan tramped restlessly up and down, now and then pausing to listen. The others slept. Wiley snored lustily and muttered in his sleep.
“Avast, there!” he mumbled. “Put her to port, you lubber!”