"Have you been looking for me?" asked the boy, in amazement.
"Yes, sir, we've been on the hunt for some days."
"How is that?"
Dick Morris briefly explained how Colonel Chadmund had received warning through a friendly Indian runner of the projected massacre of the cavalry escort. Knowing that it was impossible to forward reinforcements to them in time, and that Lone Wolf was aiming specially to get his hands upon his little boy, he had sent Dick post-haste with orders to intercept Tom, if possible, and both had been instructed to secure possession of the lad by any possible means in their power.
After a cautious investigation at the outset, when they arrived at Devil's Pass, they found that the massacre had taken place almost twenty-four hours before. The sight was a terrible one, such as made even them shudder. The horses and soldiers lay scattered here and there, just as they fell. The beasts of the forest had offered them no disturbance, probably because there were more inviting feasts elsewhere. But in the warm summer air the bloody, hacked faces were discolored and swollen beyond recognition. The hunters rode carefully along, and counted the whole thirteen, and when they found the overturned and wrecked ambulance and the dead horse a short distance beyond they were able to hit the right theory. It was in this carriage that young Chadmund had been riding when he was captured, and the scouts set out at once upon the trail of the Apache war-party.
It was all easy enough to follow the warriors, but Tom and Dick were hopelessly puzzled when they came up with the redskins, saw Lone Wolf and his brother warriors, and made the discovery that the boy was not with them. It was a most trying problem to them—the only solution being that they had grown impatient with the boy and put him to death; and yet, as the trail had been followed and narrowly watched, it seemed impossible that such a thing should have taken place without the pursuers finding it out before this. Dick Morris suggested that the captive, by some providential interference, had managed to give them the slip, but Tom could not believe it among the possibilities. If such were the case, there were no means of learning when or where it had been done, and the scouts were as completely cut off from pursuit of the boy as were the Apaches themselves.
In this dilemma there was little to do except to make a general hunt for him, keeping all the time within striking distance of the Apaches, as they did not think that the fugitive could have gotten very far from them. The hunters carefully secreted their animals, and tramped over the mountains and through ravines, gorges, and woods, until, on this eventful forenoon they discovered Lone Wolf ahead of them, acting as though he had detected something particularly gratifying. The shrewd scouts suspected the truth on the instant. The Apache was also searching for the lad, and, guided by a greater knowledge, had discovered him. And so he crouched down in the rocks, not knowing that two other figures shortly after crouched behind him. Then, after the story had been told, as the three moved off together, Dick Morris having picked up the rifle which Lone Wolf cast from him as the contest was about to open, Ned Chadmund gave him his version of that terrible attack and slaughter in Devil's Pass, and of what had followed since. When he came to explain the clever manner in which he dodged the Apaches, his listeners were delighted. Dick slapped him upon the back, and Tom insisted upon shaking hands again. It was a favorite way the old fellow had of expressing his overwhelming delight at anything he saw or heard.
"If you'll put yourself under our trainin'," he added, "we'll make a hunter of ye in the course of a dozen or fifteen years, more or less."
But Ned had no interest in hunting matters just then. He wanted to get out of that dangerous neighborhood, and to reach Fort Havens with as little delay as possible.
"How far is it?" he asked, as the trio moved along the trail.