"Well, Hugh, nobody could have been scared as badly as I was. I expected to feel the arrows going through me every second, for a little while. Why, when I first saw Hezekiah standing there I thought I'd die. If he hadn't spoken right away I don't know what I'd have done. It don't seem as if I could have stood it. It seemed the longest time after I'd seen him before he spoke, and yet it couldn't have been more than half a minute. When I first saw him standing there smiling, I thought he was just laughing because he'd got me, but when he made that sign and spoke English I felt like crying, I was so glad."
"Well," said Hugh, "you've got to be more careful; you hadn't no business to go away from camp to-day, and if you'd got killed, I don't know what I'd have done."
CHAPTER VIII. DODGING INDIANS.
The night after Jack's capture by the Piegans passed quietly and very early the next morning they continued their journey, travelling fast, but very cautiously. At every considerable rise of the prairie which gave a wide view over the country, Hugh halted Jack and the animals, and went alone to the top of the hill, from which he scanned the prairie with care before showing himself. Once or twice signs of people were seen, but in each case the trail was an old one, made in spring when the ground was wet and the grass just starting.
One day after they had made camp, Hugh left Jack to watch the horses, and climbed on foot to the top of a lofty butte nearby. When he returned to camp he told Jack that they must move on as soon as it was dark, and they gathered up the horses and brought them close to camp, and soon after the sun had set, packed and rode away.
"There's a camp of people down the creek, not very far off," Hugh said. "From the top of the hill I saw two sets of hunters carrying their meat to camp, and two or three miles below here I saw an old woman gathering wood. I don't know who the people are, likely enough they're Crows, and friendly; but they may be Sioux or Cheyennes, and I don't want to take no chances; so we'd better pack up and light out. Them Piegans will think they missed a great chance when they didn't stay with us."
"I suppose there's some danger that some of these hunters might walk right into our camp at any time," said Jack.