“But they are coming, aren’t they? We thought that——”
“Aye, they’re coming, on your trail. It was no band of buffalo you saw. I had a buffalo hide over me and the hind quarters of my horse, but I don’t know whether I fooled them or no.” His keen eyes were fastened on the break in the bushes, watching.
Walter asked no more questions. Silence was best. But while he waited he stole more than one glance at the trader, whose strange appearance had aroused his curiosity the night before. A queer figure indeed was this tall, lank, big-boned man of almost skeleton thinness; seeming to consist entirely of bone and gristle. His name was Scotch and so was his tongue, but Walter suspected that he was far from being wholly white. The coarse, straight black hair that hung below his fur cap, the dark bronze of his long face, the high-bridged nose, and prominent cheek bones, betrayed the Indian. Yet his beard was uneven in color, rusty in places, and the eyes he turned on the Swiss boy were steel gray, startlingly light in his dark face. A singular man surely, with a grim, shrewd face, no longer young, as its many lines and wrinkles betrayed. In spite of the suspense of waiting, Walter found himself wondering about Duncan McNab and his history.
The wait was not a long one. McNab suddenly raised his head, like a hound listening. Then the ears of the others caught the sounds too,—the crackling of twigs, the clatter of accouterments, as mounted men came through the strip of poplars and willows on the low opposite bank of the stream. Duncan looked to the priming of his musket and dropped a ball into the muzzle. Walter felt for his own weapon. Even in the midst of his excitement, the thought of shooting unwarned men from ambush sickened him. But if Murray and his Sioux were really on the trail, they must not cross. Fear for Elise and for Louis’ mother and sisters steeled the boy’s nerves.
The willows were moving. A horse’s head appeared, then the rider, a slender, bronze figure, brave in red paint and feathered head-dress. It was not Murray. He halted at the edge of the water and turned his head to look back. Another horse was coming, a white one.
“Himsel,” muttered McNab under his breath.
The rider came in view, tall, stately, his painted body naked to the waist, his black head bare. There was nothing about him except his size to distinguish him from any other Indian. The two talked together for a moment. The slender warrior seemed, from his gestures, to object or protest.
The waving and rustling of the willows, the sounds that came across the water, proved that other men were following. But the track was narrow, and they were obliged to check their horses until the leaders should take to the water.
“How many?” Neil whispered to McNab.
“Eight or ten,” was the equally low reply.