The hunters were galloping in this leisurely manner, when Fred Wainwright suddenly exclaimed with no little excitement,
“Yonder come the emigrants this very minute.”
As he spoke he pointed away to the east, where in the distance could be seen a cloud of smoke, as if made by the trampling of animals. Nothing else could be distinguished, but a moment’s glance sufficed to show unmistakably that it was not natural clouds, such as an inexperienced eye would pronounce it, but it was the fine dry powder of the parched prairie raised by the passage of multitudinous feet.
From the distance and through the haze nothing at all could be discovered of those who were “kicking up the dust.” The fact that it was very near that quarter from which they expected the coming of the emigrant party, and that it was at the very time they were looking for their coming, argued strongly for their being their friends. But neither Harling nor Lancaster were quite satisfied on this point.
Reining their horses down to a slow walk, they gazed long and fixedly in the direction of the tumult, and finally the sharp-scented trapper exclaimed:
“They ain’t white men; they’re Injins!”
“How do you know that?” inquired Fred.
“I can smell ’em!”
This, however, was an attempt to be facetious, and the hunter condescended to give his reasons for holding such strong suspicions.
“You see there is too much dust, in the first place, for a party of white folks.”