"Great Scott, how infamously they shoot!" muttered Ned. "The first fellow wounded him and he isn't down yet. Ah, there—at last!" he added, as a fourth shot was followed by an owl's cry, differing somewhat from those which had preceded the advent of the deer.
"What do you mean, Ned?" asked Chance, who had been sitting up watching and listening open-mouthed to his comrade's soliloquy.
"Mean? Why, Indians, of course. 'Wh[=o][=o], wh[=o][=o]' means 'where are you?' and 'hè, hè' means 'I've killed, come and help me pack him home;'" and Ned put his hands to his mouth, and drawing a deep breath sent the deep sepulchral call-note of the owl echoing through the forest.
"It's life or death, Steve," he remarked; "if the Indians aren't friendly it's death, but it will be a better death anyway than starving here in the dark."
CHAPTER XXV. IN THE CAMP OF THE CHILCOTINS.
As the echoes of Ned's hoot died away amongst the pines, both he and Steve became conscious that they were no longer alone. Someone else had entered the clearing, and a pair of human eyes were intently fixed upon them. This both the white men knew, not by sight or hearing, but by that other sense for which we have no better name than instinct. They had not heard a rustle among the leaves, nor had Steve seen so much as a shadow upon the grass, and yet both men turned simultaneously towards the same point, and Ned, in spite of his blindness, said "Clahowyah" as confidently as if he held his visitor by the hand.
"Clahowyah" (How do?), repeated a deep guttural voice from the shadow of the pines, and as he spoke a broad-shouldered wiry redskin stepped softly over the logs to meet the whites. If he always moved as silently as he moved then, it was no wonder that the listening deer so often found themselves looking down the barrel of Anahem's Hudson Bay musket before their great ears had given them any warning of their danger.
"Thank God, we are saved," whispered Ned, as the chief's words reached him. "He has traded with whites, or he wouldn't speak Chinook. Lead me up to him."