"It's queer we haven't seen any Indians," remarked Darry. "I thought these mountains were full of them."
"They were full, before the fort was established," answered Benson. "But the kind that are in this neighborhood don't like white men very much, and they only come around the fort when it's necessary. But we may meet some after buffalo. An Injun will do a heap to get a critter like that."
The old scout said it would be useless to go out in a body to look for buffalo, and so it was arranged that he should first go over the ground alone, leaving the captain and the two boys to look for smaller game.
This settled, Benson soon set off, and a little later Captain Moore, Joe, and Darry took their way along some bushes skirting a small water-course. They went on foot, leaving their horses tethered near the shelter.
"I will go up one side of the stream, and you can go up the other," said the captain. "By doing that we'll be sure to stir up anything within a hundred yards of the water."
The boys agreed, and soon each member of the party was hard at work, on the hunt for any small game the vicinity might afford.
It was not long before they gained a spot where the underbrush along the brook was thick. Here the stream divided into two branches, and, without knowing it, the captain and the boys became gradually more and more separated, the brush and small trees hiding each from the other.
"I don't see much," said Joe, after half a mile had been covered. "Those little birds aren't worth wasting powder and shot on."
"It looks to me as if somebody had gone over this ground," returned Darry. "See here, aren't those fresh footprints?"
"I believe they are. And see, here are the prints of several horses' hoofs. Benson didn't come this way, did he?"