“It is a party of Injins driving a lot of animals,” said Harling. “They have stampeded them, and if you listen very hard you can hear the tramp of their feet.”
“But the shouting?”
“All as matter of course. They have got the animals on a full run, and are shouting and yelling at them to keep them going. Hark! How much plainer you can hear ’em?”
Such was the case; the fearful whooping of the excited redskins coming to their ears with great distinctness. Suddenly Lancaster’s face brightened.
“I understand now what it all means. A lot of thieves have stampeded a drove of sheep and have ’em on the full run so as to get them as far away from re-capture as soon as possible.”
“They must be Apaches, then,” remarked Fred.
“No, sir,” and the hunter pressing his lips, “them’s Comanches.”
“What are they doing as far up as this?”
Lancaster looked at the interlocutor in surprise, and then repeated.
“As far up as this! Ten years ago I seed a party of over twenty Comanches along the Yellowstone, a thousand miles from here, and I’ve seen hundreds of ’em ’atween here and there.”