Turning her horse, Loseis mounted and rode back a hundred yards or so to a small stream that fell into the river. Dismounting in the water, she cut her mare sharply across the withers, sending her galloping on in the direction of the Indian village. Wading up the little stream, she presently climbed the bank, and making a detour among the pines, pressed herself close in to the stem of a young tree, with branches growing down to the ground. It was not a perfect hiding-place; she was further from the trail.
The riders approached. They were walking their horses now. Gault, Moale and one of the Crees; the other, Watusk, was missing. They had left their pack-horses behind them. So they are not going far! thought Loseis. Gault’s face, when he was alone with his men, wore an expression that he had never permitted Loseis to see; a look of naked brutality that made the girl shiver. It is the natural expression of that face, she thought.
Even before she could see their faces, Loseis heard Gault and Moale talking back and forth. The first words she heard distinctly were spoken by Gault. He said:
“It must have been somewhere along here. I heard a horse run off along the trail. I had not heard it before that. Sounded like some one might have been waiting here.”
“A loose horse startled away by our coming,” suggested Moale. “There are plenty of them along the river.”
“They don’t often run alone,” Gault pointed out.
“A Slavi, then. I suspect they prowl up and down this trail.”
“We don’t want them prowling around us,” growled the trader.
“Let Musqua cry like the Weh-ti-go,” said Moale.
The Cree, grinning, threw back his head and uttered the long-drawn, wailing screech that is supposed to be the cry of that dreadful spirit.