"But it adds just that much more to the mystery," was the young woman's comment. "Were they white men?"
"Half-breeds or Indians, I couldn't tell which."
"Somebody hired them to do something with us?" she suggested tentatively.
"That is only a guess. I have made it half a dozen times only to have it pushed aside by the incredibilities. If we are to connect these two men with our kidnapping, it presupposes an arrangement made far in advance. That in itself is incredible."
"What do you make of the five fires?"
"I could make nothing of them unless they were intended for signal-fires of some kind; but even in that case the arrangement in the form of a cross wouldn't mean anything."
The young woman had finished her mending and was putting the fish-bone needle carefully away against a time of future need.
"The arrangement might mean something if one were looking down upon it from above," she put in quietly.
Prime got up to kick the burned log-ends into the heart of the fire.
"If I didn't have such a well-trained imagination, I might have thought of that," he said, with a short laugh. "It was a signal, and it was lighted for the benefit of our aeroplane. How much farther does that get us?"