Crawford’s lips twitched ironically. Frontin broke into a gay laugh of mirth.
“Well touched, cap’n! Those buccaneers of Joppa said the same thing when they pitched Jonah overboard, eh? Well, they were right; and I am not so sure but that the chief here is also right!”
Crawford ignored this comment, and also disdained to argue with the Dacotah. These, obviously, were determined to abandon the white men and flee. Since one was heading south to raise a war-party, the danger must be pressing indeed. Their resolve angered him, yet he was helpless before it.
“Very well, I’ll trust to the star,” he said. “How shall we find this lake of many stars, since we do not know this country at all? According to this diagram, it lies northwest of us; but there are no trails in the wilderness.”
“Your medicine is very strong, it will whisper in your ear,” said the chief sententiously. “It will confuse the Stone Men and throw them off your trail. It will guide you——”
Crawford lost his temper at this.
“You are not warriors, but women; may the foul fiend fly away with you! Go, and the sooner the better.”
Somewhat to his consternation, Standing Bull and the other two redskins instantly took him at his word; they were very close to panic. The three caught up their packs, pulled their snowshoes from the snow, and in two minutes had melted away into the darkness.
Frontin, slow to comprehend that the Dacotah were actually departing, stared after them, then burst into a storm of bitter oaths.
“Why, the scurvy rogues mean to follow along the ice of that little river below us—leaving the enemy to swoop down on our trail in the snow! Unless we go the same way.”