At that moment, the Indians raised the blanket so that they stood upright, and plenty of fresh air was allowed to feed the blaze. Then they slowly waved the blanket between them, sometimes lowering it until it was scorched by the sleepy flames, and then elevating it above their heads. All the time, they manipulated the blanket, sometimes straight up and down, sometimes diagonally, and indeed, in every possible way.
The result of all this varied swinging was that the black column of vapor which slowly climbed the sky, was broken into circles, spiral curves, and all sorts of odd-shaped figures, which did not dissolve for several minutes in the clear air above.
I need not tell you what this meant, for in another place I have described the same thing. It was a signal fire intended by the Winnebagos for the eyes of a party of friends who were too far off to be reached in any other way. Deerfoot had seen such telegraphy many a time and oft, and more than once he had used it. He could interpret such a signal when made by a Shawanoe, Wyandotte, Sauk or Fox, but he had never learned the code in use by the Winnebago military authorities.
However, it was not possible that there was any very fine shade of meaning in the various manipulations of the two warriors. Keen brained as is the American Indian, he is unable to do a great many things with which he is credited: one of these is to do more than telegraph the simplest messages by means of fire, though it is beyond question that important tidings has been flashed hundreds of miles in a single night, from mountain top to mountain top, by means of the signal fires of the Indians.
What disturbed Deerfoot was this proof that there was a second party of Winnebagos in that section of the country. He had not dreamed of such a thing, and it might well cause him alarm, that is, for the three men who were so intent on gathering their furs comparatively a short distance away.
Carefully screening himself from observation, the Shawanoe looked intently in the direction of the gaze of the Winnebagos. He saw that they were not peering at any other ridge, but at the broad low valley to the north-west. They had not long to look when they detected a thin bluish column of smoke creeping upward among the tree tops and dissolving in the clear air above.
Deerfoot also saw it, and he knew that it was a reply to the first signal. There was another party of Winnebagos in the neighborhood; they would soon join Black Bear's party, and there was no time for delay. Indeed, but for the discovery he had made, the Shawanoe would have felt that he had tarried too long already.
It was not far now to the camp of the Hunters of the Ozark, and it was perilous to wait to warn them. Every hour counted. Not only that, but, as you can readily see, Fred Linden and Terry Clark were in still greater danger.