It was all done in a few seconds. The boys worked as men can work when they know that their lives depend on their own promptitude. Old Dick's face and Snap's were worth studying now, if only anyone had had time to study them. The old man snapped out his sentences short and sharp, had an eye for everything, and worked with the quiet, business-like promptitude of an old hand. Snap's eyes were gleaming like coals, and if the light was not playing strange tricks with his face that tightly shut mouth had more than a suspicion of a smile on it. Old Wharton noticed it, and put his hand on his arm, kindly, but firmly:'
'I knows what you're thinking, lad; but mind, I'm boss to-night. If they should come, you keep inside here and pot away until I give the word. This sort of fighting isn't like "the ring." If someone hits you once from behind a tree, the best plucked one in the world can't hit him back.'
But they did not come, and, when daylight lit up all the long glades of Bull Pine Park, Wharton gave the boys leave to get up from their impromptu fort.
'Keep your rifles in your hands, and get back the moment a shot is fired, but I reckon we are safe now until nightfall,' said he.
After a while he called to Towzer. 'This is where you saw your wolf, isn't it, young 'un?' he said.
'Yes,' replied Towzer, going towards him.
'Wal! I reckon you never saw a wolf make a track like that afore, did you?' he asked, pointing to the soft mud by the river-bank, in which, plainly visible, were the outlines of a man's hands and feet—a full impression of the former, and just the toe-marks of the latter. 'An Injun on all fours, with a wolf-skin on, that's the sort of animal that was,' remarked Dick; 'but,' he added, as he noticed Towzer's miserable expression, 'never mind, laddie, I've known deer let an Injun walk among 'em in a stag's hide and antlers, so perhaps we ought to forgive a tender-foot for being took in by the crafty devils.'
As soon as the pack which the lost 'Cradle' should have carried could be divided amongst the party, Wharton led the way to the river. Wading in knee-deep, the old man led them up stream for nearly a couple of hours. The boys had thought struggling through the brûlé bad enough, but this was a vast deal worse, and they were ready to drop from fatigue. At last they could go no longer, and implored old Wharton to choose some easier road.
'Well, I guess this will do,' said he; 'it is pretty stony here, and I don't think even our friends the Crows could pick up our trail on this stuff.'
So they landed, and stepped out as briskly as their numbed limbs would let them over a stony slope on which hardly a blade of grass grew, so hard it seemed to Frank that cart-wheels wouldn't mark it, much less mocassins.