“I do wish it.”
“Come on, then; it won’t do any hurt to leave yer post for a minute, ’specially as them varmints don’t seem to be in a hurry to tackle us.”
As soon as the couple joined Alden he hastily crossed the open space and took his station beside the other wagon.
“Somehow or other,” he mused, “I suspect that the next move will be against this point; the redskins have learned that Fleming’s wagon is well guarded and they won’t try it there a second time. I shan’t be caught asleep again.”
He shuddered, as he recalled that it was his own desertion of post which caused the warrior to risk an attack upon the wagon. He had successfully maneuvered to draw the youth away, in order that he might commit the crime. Alden said he was sure he would have seen the Indian when, after completing his awful work, he leaped from the rear of the wagon to make off.
“Which is jes’ what he wouldn’t have done; he would have sneaked from the front, and whisked out of sight afore anyone could know what he’d done; and,” grimly added the guide, “more’n likely he’d knifed one or two others on his way to the perarie agin.”
Although the veteran knew Alden had disobeyed orders when he moved from his station, he made no reference to it at the time nor afterward. Had the offender been anyone else, he would have been called down with an emphasis that he never would have forgotten.
It will be recalled that a short while before the incident related, Shagbark had started off on a reconnaissance of his own. Assured as he was that the Indians of whom he had caught glimpses during the afternoon, and the reports of whose guns he had heard not far away, were drawing near the camp with the most sinister designs, he set out to checkmate them so far as it was possible. He could not trust all his sentinels as he would have liked to trust them, and he hoped to anticipate the attack of their foes.
Shagbark dreaded that they might rush the camp—that is, dash right in among the wagons and animals and slay on every hand. This was giving them credit for a courage which the American Indian rarely shows; but if the dozen whom the hunter had seen were the advance of a more numerous party, it was by no means impossible that this risk would be taken.
Another policy to be feared almost as much was that the warriors would gallop up and fire into the camp, circling off again until they could reload and repeat their attack. The discharge would be quite sure to kill or wound some of the oxen and horses. It was not improbable, too, that, despite the protection of those on guard, the whistling bullets would find some of them.