“They were on foot. We were mounted,” he said quietly. “They deserved to die. We had not injured them, or stolen their wives or horses. They deserved to die.”
This was unanswerable, and no one spoke, the Indians going off to bury their dead companions, which they did simply by finding a suitable crevice in the depths of the ravine near which they had been slain, laying them in side by side, with their medicine-bags hung from their necks, their weapons ready to their hands, and their buffalo robes about them, all ready for their use in the happy hunting-grounds.
This done they were covered first with bushes, and then with stones, and the Indians returned to camp.
Chapter Sixteen.
In Nature’s Storehouse.
All this seemed to add terribly to the sense of insecurity felt by the Doctor, and Joses was not slow to speak out.
“We may have a mob of horse-Injun down upon us at any moment,” he growled. “I don’t think we’re very safe.”
“Joses is right,” said the Doctor; “we must see if there is a rich deposit of silver here, and then, if all seems well, we must return, and get together a force of recruits so as to be strong enough to resist the Indians, should they be so ill advised as to attack us, and ready to work the mines.”