“Well, it’s ’bout time we started. Be late enough when we get there. Wonder whether any one ’ll be on the look-out.”
As I heard these words, a cold perspiration broke out on my cheeks, and I felt as if something were stirring the hair about my forehead, for I had just been walking into the lion’s den; and if I had had any hope that my ears were deceiving me, there, plainly enough, in the bright glow cast by the fire, stood the second of the two men we had encountered first in the steamer.
It was he plainly enough, and he had one hand in a sling; while, as I peered forward round one of the trees, I counted eight men about the fire; and they all seemed to be well armed.
Where were they going? I asked myself. Along the track by which I had just come? They must be, I thought, and bent on seizing Gunson’s claim. They would surprise the four men; and there would be blood shed, unless I could warn the poor fellows first.
“I’ll go back at once,” I thought; and then with a horrible sensation of depression, I realised that this was impossible, for I did not know in which direction to go.
I had hardly thought this when I saw the whole party afoot, moving off in the direction away from me, and quickly making up my mind to follow them out of the forest, and as soon as I could make out my whereabouts, to get on somehow in front, and go on ahead, I followed them. It was no easy task, for I had to get some distance round, away from the fire, and I should have lost them if one of them had not laughed aloud at some remark. This told me of the direction in which they were, and I crept on in dread lest I should get too close and be seen, and again in dread for fear I should be left behind.
To my great satisfaction they kept on talking, as if in not the slightest fear of being overheard, and I followed as near as I dared go, till in a few minutes, to my great delight, I found that we were out in the open, and I could see the stars.
“Now,” I thought, “whereabouts are we? If I could only make out that large mass of rock that lay off to the left where I passed through the forest in the morning, I could soon get on before them. Why I must have walked right back, and—”
I stopped short, quite startled, for to my great astonishment I found, instead of going in the direction leading to Gunson’s claim, I had come through the forest on the side I had been seeking for.
“Then they are not going to Golden Valley,” I said to myself; and then it came to me like a flash of light—they were going to attack the Fort!