Without further loss of time, therefore, the boy fastened Neb’s reins to a branch as he had done before, and with great caution hurried back along the trail. If he were being followed, he could soon find it out. If the murderers were gone, he might return and complete the task he had set out to perform.
Expecting to see Duff and the others coming toward him at any moment, John made haste slowly, and half an hour passed before he again came within sight of the little valley where the day’s terrible tragedy had been enacted. The three men were not there.
Where were they? To answer the question, the young man who asked it of himself continued on, going in the direction in which Quilling and Dexter had disappeared just after the murder of Black Eagle.
“They may have a camp near by,” John told himself as he hurried along, quietly as possible, though the leaves under his feet seemed to rustle loudly as though calling out that he was coming, adding to his fears.
But he was right. Not much more than a quarter of a mile away was a great tree, uprooted by the wind; and partially concealed by the branches of its top upon the ground, he discovered Duff, Dexter and Quilling. They were for the most part hidden by the limbs of the fallen oak and had not John been very watchful he would not have discovered them without being seen himself. As it was, he doubted his ability to approach nearer without revealing his presence to the fellows. That they were talking he knew by their gestures, but not a word could he hear.
Prudence prompted the boy to turn back and hurry home to tell Ree everything that had happened. Then he thought how anxious his chum would be to know what Duff’s plans were; and so, yielding to his own curiosity and a desire to obtain this information, he made a wide half-circle and approached the fallen tree, shielded from view by the mass of earth still clinging to its upturned roots. These very roots, however, which served him so well for the one purpose, entirely prevented his hearing what was being said by the men, though he was now quite near. With great care, then, he crept around to the trunk of the tree and keeping close beside it, on his hands and knees crawled forward. Now he could hear the conversation of the fellows, and under the protection of a great limb which projected from the trunk fifty feet from the tree’s base, he paused.
“It don’t noway stand to reason that the Quaker ain’t got the letter.”
John knew that it was Dexter who was talking, though he could not see. The wheezy voice could be no other’s.
“But where is he? That’s the point I’m getting at. We could fix him in short order, if we only knew that.”
These words, sharply spoken, were surely Duff’s.