“Because he cannot talk to the savages or understand them, if any come this way. He knows no Assiniboin.”
“I don’t know much myself,” Neil protested.
“But you know a little, and you have dealt with Indians. He has not. He does not even understand their sign language.”
Neil could find no answer to that argument. He was forced to consent to the arrangement, though he was far from pleased.
XXIII
UNWELCOME VISITORS
The period of bright, calm weather seemed to be over. The next morning was dark and cloudy, with a raw wind. In accordance with Louis’ plan, he and Walter climbed Buffalo Head again. At the foot of the bare rock slope, they succeeded in picking up the trail from the painted skull. Two men, Louis concluded, had come and gone that way. He traced the trail easily enough for a short distance, but in the woods it became confused with that of several wolves. Probably the beasts had followed the men at a safe distance. Where the snow lay deep the men had taken to snowshoes.
By the time the lads had reached a puzzling spot, where the tracks seemed to branch into two trails, the threat of the morning had been fulfilled. Snow was falling. Selecting the more distinct trail, Louis led on, but the thick-falling flakes were rapidly obliterating the tracks. He grew more and more doubtful of them, until at last he was sure that he had lost the trail entirely. After circling about, attempting in vain to pick it up, he gave up the chase.
“It is of no use to go on,” he said to his companion. “If this snow had waited a few hours,—but no, it comes at just the wrong time.” With a resigned shrug of his shoulders, he turned back.
For a time the snow came thick and fast, but before the boys were half-way home, it had almost ceased. When they reached the cabin, the wind had changed and the sun was shining. The storm had lasted just long enough to defeat their purpose. Their hard tramp had been for nothing. The stay-at-home, however, had news; news he was impatient to tell.
“I have had a visitor,” he burst out the moment Louis opened the door.