By-and-by the pony gave a snort, and, looking up with a start—for, truth to tell, he had been nodding sadly—Towzer saw 'the Cradle' standing, with ears keenly cocked, staring into the gloom by the river. Gazing intently in the same direction, Towzer made out the cause of Cradle's alarm. A big grey wolf was sneaking along by the river's edge. The beast seemed to know that he was seen, for, sitting up on his haunches, he gave a low howl and then slipped back into the bushes.
'I'd better drive the pony in,' thought Towzer, and he rose to carry out his project. Just then the grey wolf cantered across the moonlit space in which the pony was feeding, the pony made a furious plunge to get away, and then it seemed to Towzer's startled eyes that the wolf rose on its hind-legs, caught 'the Cradle' by the head, stooped for a moment while something glistened in the moonlight round the pony's fetlocks, and then sprang on to its back and dashed off into the gloom, whilst a red flash came out of the darkness, and something sent the white wood-ash and red embers of the fire right and left over the sleepers.
In a moment all were on their feet. Towzer's mind seemed a blank. Surely the old German stories of were-wolves were not true in this nineteenth century! Hurriedly he told Wharton what he had seen.
'And why, in thunder, didn't you shoot when you saw him by the river?' cried Dick savagely.
'Well, I didn't think it was worth while waking you all for a wolf,' replied Towzer.
'A wolf, man! don't you know now it were an Injun?' asked Dick.
'But I heard him howl,' persisted the boy.
'And don't you suppose an Injun can howl as well as a wolf? Listen to that.'
As he spoke a long-drawn wailing howl reverberated through the gloomy pines, and from far away by the river came an answering note.
'Crows on the war-path, but not many of 'em, or they would have wiped us all out by now,' muttered Dick. 'Out with the fire, lads, pull them big logs round in a square, and get inside and lie down with your rifles, until we see if they mean to come back for our scalps.'