Having deposited Donnie within the mouth of the cave, he leaped back, seized his rifle from the trapper, and took up his position on the opposite side of the column. Peering cautiously forth he was able to discern several forms lurking in the distance, which he knew to be the baffled Indians.
"What do you say if we pick a few of them off, Dan?" he remarked. "It might teach the others a lesson, and send them back wiser than they came."
"Don't do it, pardner," was the reply. "Ye don't know them Big Lakes. We mustn't shoot unless they come at us fust."
"But, man, we can't stay here very long. We haven't a scrap of grub left, and what about that poor child? Listen to him now crying there in the cave as if his heart would break. What are we to do?"
"I don't really know, pardner," and Dan ran the fingers of his right hand through his long hair. "Seems to me we're in a trap."
"Can't we make peace with the Indians?" Grey questioned. "What have they against us? We never harmed them."
"We pinched the kid, though. Give 'im up, an' mebbe, then, they'd leave us alone."
"Not otherwise?"
"Ye bet yer life, no."
"But they won't have him," cried Grey fiercely. "At least not as long as there's any life in my body."