The second day on the trail was largely a repetition of the first. The routine of making and breaking camp proceeded more smoothly, that was all. On this day as they rose over and descended the endless shallow hills of the prairie, the snow-capped peaks of the Rockies rose into view off to the west.
Jack and Frank Garrod held no communication throughout the day. Garrod showed an increased disorder in his dress, and a more furtive manner. On the trail there were no secretarial duties to perform, and he kept out of the way of the other white members of the party. He had always been considered queer, and his increased queerness passed unnoticed except by Jack, who held the clue, and by Jean Paul Ascota. The half-breed watched Jack, watched Garrod, and drew his own conclusions.
Jean Paul on the face of things was turning out an admirable servant, capable, industrious, and respectful. The white men, including Jack, would have been greatly astonished could they have heard the substance of his low-voiced talk to the Indian lads around their own fire.
"I held my hand," he said in Cree, "because the time is not come to strike. One must suffer much and be patient for the cause. But I have not forgotten. Before I am through with him, Jack shall be kicked out of camp, and then he shall die. My medicine works slowly, but it is very sure.
"Jack is only one white man," he went on. With an ignorant, easily swayed, savage audience Jean Paul was superb in his effect of quiet intensity. "I will not let him spoil my plans against the race. The time is almost ripe now. I have visited the great tribe of the Blackfeet in the south. They are as many as the round stones in the bars when the big river is low. I have talked with the head men. They are ready. I have visited the Sarcees, the Stonies, the Bloods, and the Piegans; all are ready when I give the word. And are we not ready in the North, too? the Crees, the Beavers, the Sapis, the Kakisas, and all the peoples across the mountain. When Ascota sends out his messengers a fire shall sweep across the country that will consume every white man to soft ashes!"
Thus it went night after night. The four lads listened scowling, a hot sense of the wrongs of the red race burning in each breast. But it was like a fire in the grass, blazing up only to expire. They fell asleep and forgot all about it until Jean Paul talked again. Perhaps they sensed somehow that Jean Paul talked to them largely for the satisfaction he got out of his own eloquence.
To-night Jean Paul was watching Garrod. By and by Garrod wandered away from the campfires, and Jean Paul followed. Garrod mooned aimlessly around the tents with his head sunk on his breast, zigzagging to and fro in the grass, flinging himself down, only to get up and walk again. For a long time Jean Paul watched and followed him, crouching in the grass in the semi-darkness. Finally Garrod sat down at the edge of the coulee, and Jean Paul approached him openly.
"Fine night," he said with an off-hand air.
Garrod murmured an indistinguishable reply.
"Me, I lak' to walk in the night the same as you," Jean Paul went on in a voice indescribably smooth and insinuating. He sat beside the other man. "I lak' sit by one black hole lak' this and look. It is so deep! You feel bad?" he added.