After an hour or two spent in watching all the mysterious shadows which begin only to move and live in the forest after the moon comes up, Towzer noticed something which seemed to him more substantial than the shadows creeping slowly up a glade towards the camp. Towzer gripped his brother's arm and pointed silently towards it.
'A hind feeding up this way, isn't it?' whispered Frank.
'I don't know; that Indian was a wolf last night, it's likely enough he'll be a hind to-night; but, hind or Indian, I'm going to put a bullet into him as soon as he comes close enough to make certain,' answered the boy savagely, and he sank slowly on to his stomach to get a steady shot with his rifle.
Just then the thing, whatever it was, came out into the moonlight.
'Hold hard, Towzer, it's "the Cradle"; I can see his white fetlock as plain as the nose on your face.'
'Might be an Indian in his skin,' answered Towzer, only half convinced.
'No, no, I can see him quite plainly, can't you? And he is alone and unsaddled. Let's see what he'll do.'
Slowly the pony came along, smelling every now and then at the ground, and at last walked boldly into the camp, and, bending his neck, hung his wise old head over Snap's sleeping form, and rubbed his velvet muzzle against the boy's cheek.
Snap was on his legs in a minute.
'Why, old chap, where have you come from?' he cried, and the pony laid back his ears and whinnied ever so softly. It was a regular pony whisper.