"He's not dangerous to us until he gets a weapon," said Jack. "Wake Davy, and you two watch our guns. I'll bring in the horses."
It was near four, and beginning to be light. The rain ceased, and a thick white mist clung to the river-meadows. It was not easy to find the horses. Jack satisfied himself that two of them were missing. Why two? he thought. He did not find the body of Etzeeah, as he half expected.
He had to wait for better light before he could look for tracks. He found them at last, leading back up the Darwin valley, the fresh hoof-prints of two horses superimposed on the confusion of tracks they had made coming and going. The horses had been ridden at a gallop. Jack returned to tell Mary.
"He's gone all right," he said. "And alive or dead, he's taken Etzeeah with him. The second horse carried a load too. He's gone back to the Sapis for grub and a gun."
Mary searched Jack's face with a poignant anxiety to see what he intended to do. "Let him go," she suggested. "We know that Garrod is near here somewhere."
Jack stood considering with bent brows and clenched hands. He finally shook his head. "He could come back to-night, and pick us off one by one around our fire. We'll have no peace or security until I get him, Mary. I'll have to leave Garrod to you and Davy. You know how much finding him means to me!"
"But you," she faltered, her eyes wide with terror for him, "you can't go back alone to the Sapis. They shot at you!"
Jack's uncertainty was gone. He raised a face, transfigured.
"Pshaw! That mongrel crew!" he cried. "They're the least of my difficulties. I'll drop on them before Jean Paul can work them up to mischief. I've got to get that breed! No murder can be done in my camp, and the murderer get away! No redskin shall ever live to brag of how he bested me! I'll get him if I have to ride to hell and drag him out!"