"One o'clock," answered Dr. Whiting. He looked around pityingly. "Calls?" he sneered. "Don't you know an owl or a wolf when you hear one?" There was a lack of sincerity in his voice which could not be disguised. The doctor was like the boy who whistled when going through the woods.
Midnight came and went, and half an hour later the corporal of the next watch rooted out his men and led them off to relieve the present guard. He cautioned them again against standing up.
"To a Injun's eyes a man standin' up on th' prairie is as plain as Chimbly Rock," he asserted. "Besides, ye kin see a hull lot better if yer eyes air clost ter th' ground, lookin' agin' th' horizon. Don't git narvous, an' don't throw th' camp inter a scare about nothin'."
An hour later an owl hooted very close to Dr. Whiting and he sprang to his feet. As he did so he heard the remarkably well imitated twang of a bowstring, and his imagination supplied his own interpretation to the sound passing his ear. Before he could collect his panic-stricken senses he was seized from behind and a moment later, bound with rawhide and gagged with buckskin, he lay on his back. A rough hand seized his hair at the same instant that something cold touched his scalp. At that moment his attacker sneezed, and a rough, tense voice growled a challenge from the darkness behind him.
"Who's thar?" called Tom Boyd, the clicking of his rifle hammers sharp and ominous.
The hand clutching the doctor's hair released it and the action was followed by a soft and hurried movement through the woods.
"Who's thar?" came the low growl again, as Tom crept into the bound man's range of vision and peered into the blackness of the woods. Waiting a moment, the plainsman muttered something about being mistaken, and departed silently.
After an agony of suspense, the bound man heard the approach of another figure, and soon the corporal of his guard stopped near him and swore vengefully under his breath as his soft query brought no answer.
"Cuss him," growled Ogden, angrily. "He's snuk back ter camp. I'll peg his pelt out ter dry, come daylight." He moved forward to continue his round of inspection and stumbled over the doctor's prostrate form. In a flash the corporal's knife was at the doctor's throat. "Who air ye?" he demanded fiercely. The throaty, jumbled growls and gurgles which answered him apprised him of the situation, and he lost no time in removing the gag and cutting the thongs which bound the sentry. "Thar, now," he said in a whisper. "Tell me about it."
The doctor's account was vivid and earnest and one of his hands was pressed convulsively against his scalp as if he feared it would leave him.