“Blackfeet!” exclaimed Harvey Brill, in a low voice. “They’re a party of Blackfeet from the reservation! They must have taken French leave. Now there’ll be trouble!”
[CHAPTER XVIII]
BEAR STEAKS
For a moment the two parties remained watching each other narrowly—on one side the whites, and on the other the Indians, who surrounded, and far outnumbered our friends. The redmen were wrapped in their blankets, and they did not show a weapon, though it could hardly be doubted but that, under the gaudy folds, they carried rifles surreptitiously obtained.
“What’s best to do?” asked Jerry, in a low voice.
“Let’s see what they’re going to do, first,” suggested Jim Nestor. “It’s too bad we jumped out so suddenly, without even a pistol. And if we make a move to get ’em now it will only start the trouble all the sooner. If we can get along peaceably so much the better. I don’t hanker for a fight.”
The Blackfeet must have been wonderfully astonished to see such a strange craft descend so suddenly among them, but, with the characteristics of their race, they maintained a dignified silence, save for a few grunts, and an occasional low-voiced remark.
“I guess they take us for visitors from the clouds,” said Ned, in a half-whisper.
“I’m not so sure of that,” replied Jim. “I shouldn’t be surprised if some of them had seen an airship before.”