"Yes," said Joe, "pretty lucky this time sure. I just had to fire quick, but I happened to hit him just in the right place."
"Well, boys," said Hugh, "let's tie this on behind the saddle and be moving, it's getting late and I've got a pretty good hunger on. I want to get to camp."
Before long they were riding swiftly over the prairie, and though the sun had set, it was not yet dark when they reached the circle of the lodges.
CHAPTER XXVI. CLOSE QUARTERS WITH A BEAR.
It was not long after this that the camp moved eastward, and stopped near the west end of the little group of mountains which rise out of the rolling prairie, and which, Hugh told Jack, were known to to the Indians as Bear's Hand. The summer was ended now and the nights were cool. From the little prairie lakes and the infrequent streams, the travellers often started flocks of ducks, and at night and in the early morning, the fine thin music caused by the swiftly beating wings of migrating water fowl, reached their ears. Once or twice, Hugh had said to Jack, "Well, son, before long, we've got to be jogging. I reckon the best way for you to get home, and maybe for me too, is to take a boat down the Missouri River, if we can get one, until we strike a railroad, and then you can go East and I'll go West."
"But, Hugh, what can we do with the horses? I don't want to leave Pawnee up here in the Indian camp, nor the new horse, and we can't take them with us on the boat, can we?"
"Well, I don't know," said Hugh, "we'll have to find out about that. I reckon, unless they're pretty heavy loaded, they can find room for half a dozen animals, and the way things look now, we've got money enough to pay their passage. Anyhow, it's a different thing travelling over the prairie now, from what it was when we came up here. There's more danger, and I've been thinking we ought to cross over to Helena and go south from there through the mountains, and try to keep in the settlements all the way. I heard tell last winter, that they were building a railroad from Salt Lake City up north to Helena, or somewhere near there, and if we could strike that, it would save us a heap of time. Anyway, I don't intend to go South over the prairie, the way we came; that country, now, is likely full of Indians and we might get jumped 'most any time. We'll have to wait till we get to Benton, to find out how things are, and I reckon, pretty quick, we've got to pack up and go in there. I think the camp is likely to move up on the Marias before long, and I'd rather stay with them than ride off alone with you."
Since they had found it, their gold had caused Hugh and Jack much anxiety. The sack which contained it, though apparently full of flour was very much heavier than any of the other sacks of flour, and the difference in weight would have caused any one who handled it, to wonder what it contained. They were careful, therefore, always to pack their own horses, and to leave an open sack of flour among their things, in order that, if John Monroe's wife wished to use any, she would go to that, rather than open a fresh sack. So far, no one had any suspicion of the existence of the gold in the camp, and Hugh was anxious that no one should know of it, because there were several white men living with the Indians, about whom he knew very little.