“Mos’ likely.”
“Which would seem to indicate,” went on the boy, “that the Sac encampment may be considerably nearer than we thought.”
“Good reasonin’, Tom. Prob’ly ain’t more’n a few mile. Let’s git on.”
At the foot of the ridge they found a second swamp, almost as difficult of passage as the first. And for the next few miles it was pretty much the same story, first a low ridge, then a stretch of black swamp. They were wet and mud-caked to their knees, and itched like fire in every exposed place, from the unending assaults of the eager mosquitoes.
“Hungriest skeeters I ’bout ever seed,” averred Bill savagely. “Guess the pesky critters ain’t had a square meal in weeks.”
They blundered on, however, and in the east came a faint dawn, a few fingers of pale gray.
“Look!” cried Tom, pointing to a feeble light on the crest of a low hill that lay some distance ahead.
“Injun campfire!” exclaimed Bill, carefully examining the pin-point of flame.
As they crept warily forward, there came a dash of scarlet in the east, harbinger of the summer sun. Then the dash of scarlet grew to a blaze, and the wilderness turned from dark to daylight, swiftly and vividly. Swamp and hill were suffused with a red glow, wonderful to behold. By this time, the scouts had reached a clump of thick-growing willows that gave them an excellent point of vantage to scan the hill-top ahead.
“Lucifer!” gasped Bill, “what a spot fer an ambush!”