'Who fired them then?' cried Towzer.
'The Crows,' replied the chief.
'The Crows! then——' and the boy stopped and his face fell.
'Come, Dick,' said Snap, catching up his rifle. 'Warwolf is right, but we may save him yet, and if not——'
'No,' interrupted Warwolf, 'the white warriors will wait here. Warwolf will go and find out what has happened. The white hunter lives still. If the Crows had got a fair shot at him they would have fired once and my brother would have died. If he had been surrounded he would have fought, his rifle would have answered theirs, and we should have heard it. But he escaped as soon as the Crows discovered him; those shots were fired when our brother dashed into the forest. I go to meet him.' And so the Indian glided away and was gone.
'Best leave him have his own way,' said Wharton, 'he knows more than we do, and he'll give his own hair to save Frank's.'
The two boys could not deny the justice of what old Wharton said, but the waiting for news was weary work for all that, and even Wharton was making preparations to start on a search for his two comrades, when they came back to camp, Frank pale and bleeding, leaning heavily on Warwolf, whose hunting-shirt was soaked with the boy's blood.
'Stand back, and don't worry him with questions,' commanded old Dick; 'and you, young 'un, if you want to help your brother, pile them rugs up for us to bed him down on. What is it, Warwolf?' he added as he lowered the boy, half fainting from loss of blood, on to the skins.
'The white hunter shot a buck near a camp of Crows. An Indian would have seen their camp-fire before he saw the buck, but the white man had only eyes for the buck. The Crows heard the shot, and their braves stole round the hunter. Had he not been fleeter than the pronghorn on the prairie, they would have scalped him before dusk. As it is, he has only got a bullet through his arm. To-morrow he will be rested and well;' and, so saying, the chief went on preparing some herbs and simple remedies which he had drawn from a sack of beaver-skin which he carried about him.
'Are there many of the Crows in camp?' asked Dick.