The frontiersman’s story was soon told. He and Henry had gone straight to where the pack-train and the sick man had been left, to find the man gone and also one of the horses. They were looking around for the individual and the steed when five Indians pounced upon them and made them prisoners. The Indians took them into the forest and also led the horses away. From their talk they were evidently a portion of Moon Eye’s tribe that was journeying to the post to join their chief. What had become of the sick man none of them appeared to know.
“We watched our chances,” continued Sam Barringford, “and jest when we thought as how we could do it, Henry an’ I made a break fer liberty. We got on two o’ the hosses an’ rode as if the Old Nick war after us. The Injuns fired at us, but their aim was no good so far ez I was consarned. In the woods Henry an’ I got separated. I thought he rode straight fer here, but I must have been mistook on that p’int. I was coming along full bent when I spotted Jean Bevoir and Moon Eye and thet crowd. Then I knowed I must ride fer all I was wuth, an’ I did it.”
“Then Henry must be somewhere in the forest,” said Dave.
“Yes, but if he’s alive or dead I don’t know,” answered Sam Barringford, soberly.
“I must find out about this,” said Joseph Morris. “And I must do it at once.”
“You cannot go out now, Uncle Joe,” said Dave, hastily. “They would shoot you on the spot!”
“No, ye can’t go now,” added Barringford.
A short time passed, and then came a hail from without. Looking they saw Jean Bevoir waving a bit of dirty white cloth.
“He wants another pow-wow,” said a frontiersman at the gate.
“If I were you I’d not show myself,” said Dave, to his uncle, but Joseph Morris mounted the short ladder nevertheless.