“What do you mean, Brown? Speak up! who were they?”
“One of ’em was a white renegade, Fagan by name, a deserter from Fort Dearborn, and—”
“A renegade deserter! Tarnation! Let me get hands on the dirty traitor and I’ll introduce him posthaste to a noose and a tree limb.”
“’Nother one, Colonel, was the important Sac chief, Prairie Wolf. The third, from his looks, was a Sac, too.”
“Hm!” mused Dodge, wrinkling his brow perplexedly, “that is, indeed, a strange circumstance. You think, I suppose, that the Sacs had just left the Winnebago village?”
“Looked a heap like it.”
“What was their purpose?”
“I figger they was bearin’ a message from Black Hawk to White Crow. The two chiefs is in cahoots, sure as anythin’.”
“But how do you explain the Crow’s friendly offer to lead us to the Hawk’s hiding-place?” broke in Captain Hamilton. “That makes your suspicions look rather silly.”
“The ol’ Crow’s jest tryin’ to pull the wool over our eyes,” warned Brown ominously. “Wait an’ see! He’s got some sly trick up his sleeve.”