Moffat arose and did as requested. He answered in a moment.
“There is somebody there, sure enough, but I can’t make him out.”
“Shall I not fire, and teach him better manners?”
“No. You would only scare the women, and it ain’t certain by no means that there’s an Injin there, and I make it a point never fire at a venture.”
“Indian it isn’t, sure enough,” replied Kingman, excitedly.
As they both looked, they saw a white man dressed in the costume of a hunter step cautiously forth and approach one of the bodies. He stooped and looked at it a moment, and then catching the head in his left hand, jerked out his knife and had the scalp off in a moment. This he repeated until there were several bleeding trophies suspended at the girdle around his waist.
“That is cool,” remarked Kingman. “What business has he to do that?”
“Settling some old grudge, perhaps, against the varmint.”
“A cowardly way of settling it, at any rate. Why doesn’t he take the live savages instead of the dead ones.”
“’Cause there are none to take. He ain’t one of the chaps as is afraid. No, sir, he’d raise the top-knot of any Shawnee, dead or kicking.”