When the sun was turning red, Tatanka came back from his watch and gave the call of Bob-White. The boys at once forgot all fatigue and ran to their horses.
“Indians, from the east,” Tatanka whispered. “We must get away. I will take Mehunka’s horse to him.”
The trapper, although nearly sixty years old, sprang into the saddle like a young man, when his three friends met him at the western point of the timber.
Before they doubled a low hill, which would hide the lake from their view, Tatanka stopped behind some box-elder bushes.
“Look,” he said as he pointed eastward, “there they are.”
A dozen Indians, some on horseback and others on a stolen farm-wagon, were just stopping to make camp at the eastern end of the timber, a quarter of a mile away.
“Won’t they follow us!” asked Bill. “They might easily find our trail.”
“No,” grunted Tatanka, with plain contempt. “See what they are doing.”
One of the men was pouring something out of a jug and each took a drink out of a tin cup.
“See,” continued the scout—“they have found a jug of whiskey. They won’t see any trail. If they were in the Chippewa country, they would be scalped.”