But Herb knew as well as he knew anything that the man who had robbed him was long past “chippering up,” and was starting alone to the unseen camping-grounds.
“How long since you got back here?” he’ asked, close to the dulling ear.
“Couldn’t—keep—track—o’ days. Got—turned—round—in woods. Lost—trail—heap—long—getting—to—th’ old—camp.”
The words seemed freezing on the lips which uttered them. Herb asked no more questions. Silence was broken only by the rolling voice of the land-slide, which had not yet ceased. Occasional volleys of loose earth and stones, dislodged or shaken by the down-plunging granite, still kept falling at intervals on the buried camp.
At one unusually loud rattle, Chris’s lips moved again. In those strange gutturals which the boys had heard in the hut, he rumbled an Indian sentence, repeating it in English with scared, breaking breaths.
It was a prayer of her tribe which his mother had taught him to say at morning and eve:—
“God—I—am—weak—Pity—me!”
“Heap—noise! Heap—dark!” he gasped. “Can’t—find—th’ old—camp.”
“You’re near it now, old chum,” said Herb, trying to soothe him. “It’s the home-camp.”
“We’ll—camp—to-ge-ther?”