But it might have been otherwise. They may have been more guarded than the last, and, stealing up to the spring, discovered the presence of the white man. In that case, they could have crept forward unawares and despatched him without any disturbance that could have been heard twenty feet away.
“I hope this suspense will soon be over. It doesn’t seem to me that there’s much chance of Freeman getting his little fellow back, even with the aid of the matchless Mendez, and now it begins to look as if it had gone ill with him. What a blow to the wife and mother, and yet how many similar ones have been struck in the Southwest!”
The lieutenant now resorted to signaling again, listening with a painful throbbing of the heart for the reply which came not.
“Something is wrong,” was his conclusion; “the poor fellow may have grown impatient with waiting and started off on a hunt of his own. If he has attempted anything of that kind, it is the end of the business so far as he is concerned. I should not have left him alone—Sh!”
At that instant he was thrilled by a peculiar sound. It was not a signal or spoken word, but the low, moaning outcry made by a person in the depth of distress or great suffering.
“It’s Freeman,” whispered the lieutenant; “and some grievous ill has befallen him! He is not far off; what can it mean?”