So soon as they had taken this indispensable precaution against the invisible assailants, the three men carefully inspected their weapons to be ready to reply; and then waited with finger on trigger, and looking searchingly in all directions.
They remained thus for a rather lengthened period, though nothing again disturbed the silence of the prairie, or the slightest sign revealed to them that the attack made upon them would be renewed.
Suffering from the deepest anxiety, not knowing to what they should attribute this attack, or what enemies they had to fear, the three men knew not what to do, or how to escape with honour from the embarrassing position into which chance had thrown them. At length Blue-fox resolved to go reconnoitring.
Still, as the Chief was justly afraid of falling into an ambuscade, carefully prepared to capture him and his comrades, without striking a blow, he thought it prudent, ere he started, to take the most minute precautions.
The Indians are justly renowned for their cleverness; forced, through the life they lead from their birth, to employ continually the physical qualities with which Providence has given them, in them hearing, smell, and, above all, sight have attained such a development, that they can fairly contend with wild beasts, of whom, after all, they are only plagiarists; but, as they have at their disposal one advantage over animals in the intelligence which permits them to combine their actions and see their probable consequences, they have acquired a cat-like success, if we may be allowed to employ the expression, which enables them to accomplish surprising things, of which only those who have seen them at work can form a correct idea, so greatly does their skill go beyond the range of possibility.
It is before all when they have to follow a trail, that the cleverness of the Indians, and the knowledge they possess of the laws of nature, acquire extraordinary proportions. Whatever care their enemy may have taken, whatever precautions he may have employed to hide his trail and render it invisible, they always succeed in discovering it in the end; from them the desert has retained no secrets, for them this virgin and majestic nature is a book, every page of which is known to them, and in which they read fluently, without the slightest—we will not say mistake, but merely—hesitation.
Blue-fox, though still very young, had already gained a well-deserved reputation for cleverness and astuteness; hence under the present circumstances, surrounded in all probability by invisible enemies, whose eyes, constantly fixed on the spot that served as his refuge, watched his every movement, he prepared with redoubled prudence to foil their machinations and countermine their plans.
After arranging with his comrades a signal in the probable event of their help being required, he took off his buffalo robe, whose wide folds might have impeded his movements, removed all the ornaments with which his head, neck, and chest were loaded, and only retained his mitasses, a species of drawers made in two pieces, fastened from distance to distance with hair, bound round the loins with a strip of untanned deer-hide, and descending to his ankles.
Thus clothed, he rolled himself several times in the sand, for his body to assume an earthy colour. Then he passed through his belt his tomahawk and scalping knife, weapons an Indian never lays aside, seized his rifle in his right hand, and, after giving a parting nod to his comrades who attentively watched his different preparations, he lay down on the ground, and began crawling like a serpent through the tall grass and detritus of every description.
Although the sun had risen for some time, and was pouring its dazzling beams over the prairie, Blue-fox's departure was managed with such circumspection that he was far out on the plain, while his comrades fancied him close to them; not a blade of grass had been agitated in his passage, or a pebble slipped under his feet.