"That is the first time I have heard that smoke makes a thing clearer."
"Ah! that's the trouble," added Tim, with a desponding shake of his head. "If this bad state of things continyees fur a few days longer, yees'll have to laad me around wid a string, or else taach Terror to do the same, as yez have saan a poor blind man and his dog do."
"You draw rather a woeful picture of yourself. But I suppose you can hold out for a few hours longer, and when it becomes dark, we can make a fire, light your pipe and get far away from it before any of the Indians could reach the spot."
"I think yez are right, but me intellect is working so faably this afternoon, that I faars to tax it too hard lest it topples over and gits upsit intirely. Yis, yez are right."
"Somehow or other I think Shasta is in this neighborhood——"
"So does meself," interrupted Tim, in his anxiety to give assent.
"If he is, he will not forget the kindness of Elwood."
"Never!"
"And whether we wait here or not he will attend to his safety all the same."
"That he will—you may depend on it."