"By shooting him from ambush; he could do it without being seen, and I can think of no way by which the guilt could be brought home to him."
"You're off there. Motoza knows that you and me are in these parts, and that we're the friends of the younker; what had took place afore, with what I'd swear to, would hang Motoza, and he knows it."
This declaration was not quite clear to Jack, but it sounded as if the guide was willing to so modify his testimony in court as to insure the conviction of the Sioux in case he followed the plan named by the youth.
The veteran would have considered it right, under the circumstances, to do such a thing.
"Since the fear of our testimony restrained him, why did he not seek to remove us in the same manner, when he has had more than one opportunity?"
"And there you're off again. Motoza wouldn't have had any trouble in wiping out two young tenderfeet like you, but he'd likely run agin a snag when he tried it on me!"
The hunter shut his lips and shook his head with eloquent earnestness.
"S'pose he'd done such a thing," he added, angrily; "don't you see that when the Government larned, as it would be sure to larn, that three persons had been killed near the reservation by some of the Injins, there would be the biggest kind of excitement? It would put its best officers at work, and never let up till everything was brought to light. You see that, Motoza not being the only Injin in these parts when the thing was done, the officers would have some of the other varmints to work on, and they'd got the whole story from 'em, which would mean the hanging of the Sioux."
Jack saw the force of his friend's words. Even in this wild region, where one would naturally suppose he was beyond reach of the law, the man who committed a grave crime faced a serious risk. Certainly there was much less danger in "removing" one person than three.
"As it is, Motoza has placed himself in a bad position, but it would have been tenfold worse had he shot you and me."