Fred Linden could have brought him down at the moment he wheeled had he chosen to do so, but he recalled his own proposition to Terry some time before, about firing such a shot. Indeed, since they had some of the cooked buffalo steak left, there was no call to use any more ammunition for game.
Terry Clark came laughing down the rocks, looking upon the whole business as one of the funniest of incidents, but to Fred it was any thing but a laughing matter. Time was becoming of the utmost value, and this divergence from the trail meant delay—a delay, too, whose length could not be guessed. If they had turned aside several miles back, it was more than likely that they would lose all the advantage gained by the laborious travel of the night before.
"How could we have made such a blunder?" asked Fred, his eyes wandering back over the path, as though searching for an explanation of the mistake; "I suppose at the point where the trails cross the direction isn't changed much and this is more distinct than the other. Terry, I can't see any thing about this to laugh at."
"I don't obsarve much of the same mesilf," said the other, whose face nevertheless was on abroad grin; "I wasn't laughing at yersilf, or the mistake we made."
"What was it then that amused you so much?"
"I was thinkin' how funny it looked to see the deer and bears and buffaloes and foxes and panthers all standing round that big bowl and winkin' at each ither while they drank their health."
"Terry, there's going to be trouble because of this blunder."
"What do ye signify be the same?"
"I believe that all the advantage we gained by traveling so hard last night is lost. When we follow this trail back until it reaches the main one, more than likely we shall meet the Winnebagos at that point, if they will not actually be between us and the camp in the Ozarks."
"I'm afeard it's not all a falsehood that ye are telling me," said Terry, with an expression in which there was nothing like a jest.