“I would have whipped round with the quickness of lightning, if not a little quicker, and blowed the audacious redskin to blue blazes, before he would have known anything or could have said Jack Robinson.”
At this juncture, a figure suddenly appeared among them, which quickly resolved itself into Ward Lancaster, their guide.
“What’s all this húbub about?”
“Nothing at all, Mr. Lancaster, nothing at all,” replied Swipes.
“But if I aint powerful mistaken, I heern some one yell out that the Injins were coming.”
Thus fairly detected, the Yankee was compelled to acknowledge the truth, and receiving a warning from the trapper to “put a stopper in his meat-trap,” the guide sauntered away to his own post of observation where he remained until the break of day.
Finally morning came, and with it the pleasant fact that nothing had been seen or heard of a single redskin since the departure of the party the evening before. This was a pleasant fact we say, and was a great relief to the trappers, who had concluded to a certainty that there would be trouble before the night passed.
As soon as it was fairly light Lancaster and Harling rode out on the prairie and took a survey of the surrounding country to look for signs of their enemies. They scrutinized the hills closely, but with the same result,—nothing was seen or heard regarding them.
“We’ll keep a sharp look-out for the warmints to-day, and if we don’t see nothin’ of ’em, why it’ll kinder look as though they didn’t intend to trouble us.”
“Your fear, I suppose, is that Cherouka became so desperately enamored with the young lady we have in our charge that he may try to take her away from us against our will.”