"I wonder who made those camps then which we found along the divide. I can't think that those were Indian camps;" and Ned told his companion of the camps which he and Steve had stumbled upon during their search for Pete's Creek, as well as of that glove found by the bear tracks.
"Bear tracks!" growled Rampike, "not they. A softy who would blaze the wrong side of a tree wouldn't know bear tracks from the tracks of a gal's shoe with a French heel to it. Cruickshank's tracks, that's what they was, and ef you don't see more of 'em before you get your gold out of Pete's Crik you may call me the biggest liar in Cariboo!"
"You don't mean to say that you think Cruickshank would dare to dog us?"
"Dog you! That man would dog the devil for gold."
This was a new idea to Ned. If there was any truth in it, then all Phon's stories of faces seen in the pool, of eyes which watched the gold, of figures which rustled ever so lightly over the dry sal-lal on the canyon's edge, when all save Phon and the night owls slept, all these stories might be something more than the imaginings of a crazed Chinaman's brain.
For a while Ned sat silently smoking and looking thoughtfully into the embers. Then he rose, and knocking the ashes out of his pipe said:
"I am going to look for Phon to-morrow if Steve seems well enough to be left here. Shall you come?"
"Yes, I reckon I may as well. You cain't hev all the sport, sonny. I'm ruther partial to gunning myself."