“Wait!” cried Loseis. “Not a word! Gault won’t know how much we know. Let him guess!”
Conacher swallowed his anger. Etzooah slipped from his horse, and crawled on the ground like a whipped cur.
Loseis and Conacher mounted and rode on, driving the third horse in front of them. Etzooah, cramped from his long confinement in bonds, staggered along slowly behind them.
CHAPTER XVIII
CONFUSION
When he came to the Slavi village after his long walk, Etzooah crossed the ford, and sticking his head inside the first tepee, awakened the sleepers with a yell. He demanded to know if Yellow-Head and Blackburn’s daughter had been seen. A grumbling voice replied that they had taken a canoe and gone down river. Searching for a horse, Etzooah perceived that the whites in their haste had turned out their horses without unsaddling them. The sorrel mare eluded him; she disliked the Indian smell; but he caught the horse he had already ridden so far. It would serve for the short distance he had still to go. Refording the river, he proceeded along the trail.
It was not Gault’s habit to confide in his creatures any further than he was forced to. Etzooah’s job had been to steer the fur train east across the prairie and hit the big river at Fisher Point, where the fur could be picked up later by the launch and a scow from Good Hope. Etzooah might have guessed that a short shrift was waiting for Conacher at Blackburn’s Post, but he had been told nothing of the details of the plot, which, indeed, had been concocted after his departure. Etzooah expected to find Gault and his men camped within a mile or so of the Post, where he had left them earlier that day.
Ere he had gone two miles beyond the Slavi village, the miserable Indian rode fairly into the trap set for the white man. He was pounding along at a good rate over this well-traveled part of the trail, one knee hooked around the horn of his saddle, as was his custom. The thin line, stretched as taut as a wire across the trail, caught him under the chin, and lifted his body clear of the saddle. His knee held him; the horse reared; Etzooah’s head was dragged back between his shoulders. As the horse’s forefeet dropped back to the ground, there was a horrible soft crack heard. The man’s body came away from the saddle, and dropped limply in the trail. The terrified horse ran on.
There was a loud laugh of bravado amongst the trees. Gault stepped out into the trail. “Worked like a charm!” he said. “I think his neck is broke.”
Moale dropped to one knee beside the huddled body, and struck a match. “God! . . . It’s Etzooah!” he gasped.
“Etzooah! . . . Etzooah . . . !” said Gault stupidly.