“What’s got into that confounded redskin now?” said Van Alstyne peevishly. “That ’ugh, ugh’ fol-de-rol of his is beginning to get on my nerves.”
“What is it, chief?” asked Brown quickly, ignoring the Captain’s complaint.
“Mounds of earth, behind barn. Maybe burial place.”
“These are graves, that’s a certainty,” nodded Lieutenant Clark, when the group had moved over to the place pointed out by the Pottawattomee.
“Four of them, and newly made,” Ben said soberly.
“No doubt the graves of the Indian victims,” commented Van Alstyne acidly. “Evidently Black Hawk and his painted braves are unique among the savages. They murder the settlers and then give them civilized burial.”
“Yer right on one score, Cap’n, fer a change,” answered Bill Brown calmly. “The mounds cover the bodies o’ the pore folk kilt by the Injuns. But these Christian graves are the work o’ white men, who must’ve come along arter the massacre an’ found the corpses.”
“White men?” returned the Captain. “But who?”
“Guess you didn’t notice that trail we crossed, when we rode in here?”
“How should I? I’m no blinkin’ blood-hound.”