“Keep on walking,” Cyril said aloud to Perry, for the latter had stopped, panting and startled, and Cyril felt him quiver as he half-forced him along.
“What are they going to do? Kill them?” whispered Perry.
“They’re going to master them,” replied Cyril. “Don’t speak like that. Recollect our orders. It is to save them from being seen.”
The boys kept on their walk, watching the proceedings by the fire as much as they could, but in less than five minutes there was nothing to see, for both the guides were bound with a hide rope from the mules’ packages; and urged onward by threats from the colonel’s and John Manning’s pieces, they had passed out of sight among the bushes in an enforced stooping position, a faint crackling telling of the direction in which they had gone, while a louder crackling and snapping told, with the accompanying blaze, that something had been thrown upon the fire.
“The bows and arrows,” whispered Perry, and they kept up their monotonous tramp to and fro.
“What are they doing now?” said Perry suddenly, and then he started, for Cyril burst out into a merry laugh, and gave him a sharp slap on the back, so suddenly, and with such force, that Perry stumbled forward, and nearly fell.
“Are you mad?” cried the boy furiously.
“Not quite,” said Cyril merrily. “Here, give us your hand, old chap: I’ll haul up. That’s your sort. Ahoy! There you are again.”
He said all this boisterously, and then in a low whisper:
“Keep it up. Hit me, or do something. Two Indians have come up close to watch.”