“You know the prairie looks as if it hadn’t rained for six months, and we have left a trail behind us, something like a Mississippi steamer leaves, when she throws every thing she has on board into her furnaces, for the sake of beating her rival. Just look behind you and see what a cloud you have left in the air.”
“Yes; I know,” returned Lancaster, without turning his head. “And that’s just the reason for them ’ere thieves off yonder being redskins. We’ve had our horses in a gallop, and their hoofs have kicked up this dust, an’ that’s just what has been done over yonder. You have heard, I suppose, that emigrant parties aint apt to go ’cross the plains on a full canter, you’ve larn’t that I ’spose, haint you?”
“I’ve learnt it now if I didn’t know it before,” laughed Fred. “You know there may rise occasions for them to put themselves at their highest speed, as when a party of Indians come screaming down upon them.”
Lancaster shook his head.
“You’re mistook there, my friend; you’re mistook there. I’ve guided many a party through the Rockies and across the plains, and some of ’em from St. Louis and Independence, and I never yet seed that thing done. ’Cause why, it would be all tom-foolery, with their loaded wagons, and jaded horses and sleepy oxen; such a thing would be impossible—yes, sir, impossible, even if all the Injins were on foot. You see, don’t you?”
Wainwright could not deny the force of what the hunter said, and much against his will he was led to believe that a party of hostile Indians were rapidly nearing them. This, while it gave the hunter no uneasiness as regarded themselves, looked as though the emigrant train had gotten into trouble, and on that account the three horsemen were more apprehensive than they would have been under ordinary circumstances.
In the mean time the agents in this cloud of dust were rapidly nearing the party of hunters, who, with their horses upon a slow walk, were attentively watching for some further evidence of the identity of their enemies.
“Hark!” admonished Harling, raising his hand with a gesture of silence.
All bent their heads and listened. Faintly through the turmoil and confusion, they caught the sound of shouting, as though the parties were calling to each other; at the same time a faint rumble or trembling was heard which showed that numerous animals were tramping the prairie.
“Doesn’t it look as though the emigrants were in trouble?” asked Fred, with an expression of familiar alarm. “I do hope they haven’t been attacked.”