"What! you have not seen them?"
"No; so soon as I recognized the Indian sign, I hurried back to consult with you."
"Very good; but as you did not go to their camp, how were you able to give me such precise information about them and their number?"
"Oh, very easily," the hunter answered simply; "the desert is a book entirely written by the hand of God, and it cannot hide its secrets from a man accustomed to read it. I needed only to look at the trail for a few minutes to divine everything."
The Count fixed on the hunter a glance of surprise. Though he had been living in the prairie for more than six months, he could not yet understand the species of divination with which the hunter seemed gifted, with reference to facts that were to himself as a dead letter.
"Perhaps, though," he said, "the Indians whose trail you detected are harmless hunters."
Bright-eye shook his head.
"There are no harmless hunters among the Indians, especially when they are on the trail of white men. These Indians belong to three plundering tribes which I am surprised to see united; they doubtlessly meditate some extraordinary expedition, in which the massacre of these emigrants will be one of the least interesting episodes."
"Who are these Indians? Do you think they are numerous?"
The hunter reflected for a moment.