'And,' continued Snap, 'since this terrible bird has settled there, no Indian will put foot on the mountain.'
'You've got it, Snap,' cried Dick enthusiastically, 'that's our chance, we can carry Frank that far.'
Warwolf's face had been a study while the boy spoke, and now he broke in with vehement endeavours to dissuade the whites from their rash undertaking.
'No! no! Warwolf,' replied Wharton, 'you may believe in your great bird if you like, but I guess the only birds as trouble me just now are them tarnation Crows.'
'My brothers must please themselves,' replied the chief; 'Warwolf will die with them, if they wish, here at the hands of the Crows, but to enter the Lone Mountain now is madness. If my brothers will, they must go alone.'
'Right you are, chief; this much you shall do for us,' said Snap: 'help us to take Frank on my pony to the foot of the mountain, then do you take the pony and escape to your own tribe and bring them with you to save us.'
'To avenge you?' said the Indian.
'Very well, to avenge us,' assented Snap, and so it was settled.
Frank was put on the Cradle's back, and in silence, with rifles at the ready, they broke up their camp and crept through the forest towards the haunted mountain.
The dawn was coming when the chief left them, his fine, fierce face clouded with a sorrow which even his stoicism could not conceal. He looked on his friends as going to their doom. He tried once more to persuade them either to stop and fight the Crows in some extemporised fort in the forest, or to trust to the Crows not catching them before they could reach the Blackfoot village.