"By gracious!" he exclaimed, "I believe that's them."
"Where?" eagerly asked his companion.
"I don't mean your folk, but that waggon train with supplies from Rapid City."
Brinton's heart sank, for his hopes had been high; but he found some consolation, after all, in the declaration of the scout.
A mile away, across the prairie, a party seemed to be preparing to leave camp. At that distance it was impossible to identify them, but Jackson was positive that they were the train in search of which he had left the camp at Wounded Knee.
Brinton's hope was that his parents were with them. It would have been hard for him to explain just why his hope was so strong in this respect, but it seemed reasonable to suspect that the light of the camp had attracted their notice during the darkness, and that they had gone thither, after finding it impossible to rejoin him.
The real, but slight, ground on which he based this fancy was that his pony Jack had been found while he, his owner, was travelling in a direct line from the Big Cheyenne toward the camp. Since the animal must have kept company for a time with the other two, the Kingslands had continued the same course, and might have descried the twinkle of the camp fire.
"I myself would have seen it, had I not ridden the other way and gone into the gully, where I couldn't detect anything a dozen feet away."
"Yes, I'm almost sure it's them," added Jackson, after further studying the camp; "let's find out."
The proposition suited Brinton, and the two headed their ponies toward the camp.