“Yes; do, my lad. I shall be in rather a dangerous position. Say I beg of him to try and give me protection, for though I am fighting against him here, all this was sure to come, and I might as well grow rich as any one else.”
I promised eagerly that I would; and we were hurrying through our breakfast, when there was the trampling of feet and the breaking of wood just below.
Gunson looked up and seized his rifle, to stand ready; and directly after a man strode out of the dense forest and stood before us.
“Grey!” I exclaimed, wonderingly.
“Yes,” he said, stolidly. “Morning.”
“Have some breakfast?” said Gunson.
“Yes. Bit hungry,” said Grey. Then turning to me and Esau—“Chief says I’m to tell you both that as you have chosen to throw in your lot with Mr Gunson here, you are not to come back to the Fort again.”
I dropped my knife and sat half stunned, wondering what Mr and Mrs John would say; and as I recovered myself, it seemed as if when a few words of explanation would have set everything right, those words were never to be spoken.
Esau had been as strongly affected as I was; but he recovered himself first.
“Not to come back to the Fort again?” he cried.