“It’s fun to teach you. Say, I’ll tell you.”
“What?”
“Let’s go on a chicken hunt and visit the old mountaineer together?”
“Fine! I’ll do it; but I must be going now or Uncle will worry about me. Good-by.”
“Good-by,” he responded, as she turned Eagle’s head toward the trail. The little horse leaped up the bank at her touch. With a wave of her hand she disappeared among the willows.
The boys at the ranch missed their usual trout supper that night and they joked Fred about failing to do his duty. He took their flings good-naturedly; but he never let out a word to tell what became of the best string of fish he ever caught.
Chapter VI
ANKANAMP
IT was a gloomy night. The sun had gone down in a bank of black clouds. The lightning was playing above the western hills, and the thunder was beginning to grumble. The lightning flashed more sharply; a wind swept across the valley; the rain began to patter, then to pour; the lightning leaped flash upon flash out of the inky sky, while closely following every stroke came the cracking, booming thunder. The storm was on in all its fury, driving through the swaying trees and drenching the group of silent wigwams that stood ghost-like within the edge of an aspen grove at the foot of the eastern mountains.
Every dusky head was sheltered beneath the smoky canvas. No sign of life was about except the shaggy and dejected herd of squaw ponies which stood with backs hunched up and dripping tails turned toward the driving rain. Most of the Indians had rolled themselves in their blankets and were sound asleep despite the roaring storm.
But within a certain wigwam there was unrest. Had one raised the rain-soaked door-flap, one might have seen in the dull glow of the dying coals, several dusky forms squatted about the fire, while another, rolled in a blanket, lay near.