"I admit that you were right and we were wrong about him; I feared for Fred, not for myself, and you see he has not tried to harm me."
"That ain't 'cause he loves you like the brother he calls hisself, but 'cause he hates Fred more'n he does you. If he hadn't had such a good chance to grab the other younker, he would have grabbed you."
"Then you have no doubt that Motoza is the cause of it all?"
"No more doubt than that you're a setting on that stone there."
"I can't understand it; Fred is not the one to let a single Indian make him prisoner, when one is as well armed as the other."
"Who said there was only one of the imps?"
The abrupt question meant a good deal. It had already been proven that a number of other Indians were in the vicinity; but Jack had not thought of associating them with the vagrant Sioux in his hostility to the young hunters, although there was scarcely a doubt that Motoza had had one helper or more in his designs against Fred Greenwood. This put a new face on the matter, and Hazletine discussed the question more freely.
"There must be a half-dozen varmints or so in the mountains; they've sneaked off the reservation and are hunting here without permission from the folks that have 'em in charge. It ain't likely they started out with any other idee than to have a little frolic of their own, meaning to go back when they was through; but, as I remarked afore, when an Injin sees a good chance to raise the mischief with just as good a chance of not being found out, he's pretty sartin to do it. Wal, things took such a queer shape when you younkers and Motoza seen each other that all the ugliness in him has come out, and that's what's urging him now."
"It seems to me, Hank, that if he meant to punish Fred for humiliating him, the method was simple."
"How?"