“Only one thing is plain, some Mingo or somebody has a grudge ag’in ye, or else there’s been some consarned queer coincidences,” broke in Tom Fish. “It beats me!”
“I don’t see what we are to do, Ree! Tom and I decided just to wait here until you came back. But what have you been doing? Why, your hands and face are frightfully scratched, and you look all played out!”
“I guess I’ve had my hands full,” said Ree with a sad little smile. “But tell me where you two were. Why is there no fire?”
“Such a time as we have had!” was John’s sorrowful answer. “Poor old Jerry was scarcely dead before there were hawks or buzzards circling around above us, and when night came, wolves and other animals howled all around us, and so near we would have been afraid, had we not had a big fire. Toward morning it became quieter and I was asleep, and Tom on watch, when a bear came poking around.”
“Biggest bear ye ever seen,” interrupted Thomas Fish.
“Well,” John went on, “we both set out after that bear, though it was pitch dark. We had a long chase for nothing, though, for we caught sight of the big fellow only once, and not long enough to get a shot at him. Coming back, it was light, and we stopped to explore the gully. But we did not expect to find you here, Ree. We would not have come back when we did, only to keep the buzzards away from the horse till we can burn the body. And I don’t see what we are to do. But you haven’t told a word about yourself.”
Ree was busily thinking, and for a little time made no answer. Then Tom and John spoke again, asking where he had been and what he had found.
“Why, I’ll tell you,” he answered them. “I came upon a first-class place for a cabin, on a bluff right at the bank of a splendid little river, and a little natural clearing around it. About five minutes later I came upon some Delaware Indians and as they wouldn’t believe me when I told them who I was, they made me a prisoner. I got away in the night, and here I am.”
John’s eyes opened wide, and excitedly he demanded to know all the particulars of Ree’s adventure. Tom Fish whistled a long, low note and almost closing his eyes, he looked toward Ree with a squint which was more expressive of his astonishment and interest than words could have been.
As the three of them sat on the thills of the now useless cart, Ree told them more fully of his experiences. Many were John’s outbursts of interest, and Tom whistled in his peculiar way more than once.