CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE DECISION.
THE situation of the trapper was perilous in the extreme, for it was to be supposed that the Apaches, after the loss of one of their number, would maintain unremitting watch of the only avenue through which anyone could enter or leave the building; but he remained in a stooping posture for several minutes, passing his hands back and forth over the ground, until he had several times covered the space in front of the door.
Finally, with a muttered exclamation, he stood erect, and was ready to start toward his friends, a long way off on the elevation where he had left them hours before.
His keen ear, trained to wonderful fineness by his years of life in the wilderness, caught the footfalls of a horse, which he knew at once was ridden by one of the Apaches. Instead of moving off, or attempting to re-enter the building, he remained upright, with his back against the structure. Had there been a corresponding figure on the other side of the door, a person observing the two from a brief distance would have declared they had been carved and set there scores of years before.
The Indian rode up within sight, and halted a moment while he gazed at the front of the structure. Nothing was easier than for the trapper to tumble him from his pony, but he was too wise to summon the band by doing so. He gazed at him in turn, content to let him alone as long as he did not disturb him.
The Apache must have felt that he was in danger of drawing a shot from one of the upper windows, for he quickly wheeled his steed and rode off in the darkness.
He was hardly out of sight when Eph moved straight out from the building. If Rickard or his companion were on the watch they must have wondered at the sight, though it was explainable on the ground that the trapper was waiting a favorable opening to run the gauntlet.
Instead of crawling, the veteran broke into his loping trot, which was speedier than it appeared. The moon had risen, and though it was at his back he feared the result of the exposure to its additional light.