"Who!"
"All of us. Old White Eagle and Singing Bird are going with us, to clean the fish. But that doesn't matter."
They were the old father and mother who lived in the same family with Buck Elk.
"Time's getting awful short," Fat Bear mused. "But maybe we can try something."
With wrinkled White Eagle and Singing Bird scuttling close behind, they went fishing in the river below the village. They had not said it to each other, but they hoped never to come back. They must make a break for liberty soon. The warriors might return within a week. The forest beckoned close at hand. And southward, far, far southward, their real home called to them. They had been gone almost eight months, but it felt like an age.
"To-night, huh?" murmured Buck Elk, as he and Little Fat Bear fished together, and the two old Indians drowsed in the shade, or wove baskets of reeds.
"How?"
"Light out from camp while they're asleep. May not get another chance. That's why I told 'em we'd like to stay all night, so as to get plenty fish."
"They'll signal help and trail us. Some of those old men can travel heap fast."
"So can we. We'll have a head start, and I don't believe there's anybody in the village who can catch us."