"The white chief does not think Clo-ke-ta has told him the truth!"
Her whisper was shapen so contemptuously that, at the moment, I could almost have bitten out my tongue in wrath at what it had given breath to. However, it was of importance that I should know whether her information had been exaggerated or not. I consequently replied:
"He does not."
Her fingers were laid upon my arm with an imperative gesture, as she whispered in a tone where scorn and affection were curiously blended:
"Let the white chief follow Clo-ke-ta. But his feet must be as light as the first leaf the autumn wind strews upon the plain."
As her last word fell upon my ear, she glided away from me. Nor was it without some difficulty I kept my sight upon her undulating form, as my steps sped noiselessly after.
We must have covered some eight hundred yards, or possibly less, when she pointed a little to my right, in advance of the spot we had reached. There I saw the struggling light of a small camp-fire, carefully smothered down with the torn-up roots of sage-brush, as I concluded, and could just make out the forms of the slumbering red-skins around it. Still further on the right I caught the faint glow of another. To the left, I could just make out two more; the farthest of these was so distant, that it was no larger, although less defined, than the flash of the fire-flies I had been accustomed to watch round my home in Galena, even earlier than the period at which I commenced this history of my adventures. As I turned towards her again, she said in a lower voice even than she had previously adopted:
"My brother has sharp eyes."