Jacob pulled in his team with a jerk, while the hunters leaped from the wagon. Saddles were swiftly thrown on the backs of the horses they had secured to their own wheelers, and in a trice they were riding away. It took but ten minutes to round up the Indian ponies, which were secured together by passing the reins of one through those of another, and so on, till all were secured.
"We can move along now," sang out Tom at length. "Them critters is away over thar watchin', and they'll be back to tend to their men as soon as we're gone. We ain't got nothin' more to fear from 'em. We've give 'em real pepper."
CHAPTER XV
Giving 'em Pepper
It was a jovial party which sat round the camp fire on the evening following the defeat of the Indians, for even the old and tried hunters could not help a feeling of elation.
"It makes yer feel jest like a kid," said Steve, as he blinked in the firelight, and looked across at Jack, who was tending the buffalo steaks hissing over the embers. "It ain't so many hours ago as me and Carrots was, as yer might say, fair up agin it. I didn't look to come out clear. And yet, here we aer, and I'm watchin' thim steaks pretty close, which seems to show as thar ain't nothing much wrong."
"And the back, mate?" asked Tom, striding across towards him, and looking particularly big.
"Jest as well as ever," came the hearty answer. "I'm that young and skittish, seems I could kick the carrots off Jack's head. Hand over one of them steaks, young 'un. A man same as me don't oughter be kept waitin'."
"We was talkin' of pepper," began Jacob, one of the hunters, when the meal was ended, and all were smoking their pipes. "That 'ere word minds me of a time when we give them red devils pepper same as we did to-day, only 'twarn't in these here parts, and we wasn't fer makin' gold in Californy."