He had come upon a sight, alas! too familiar at that time upon the plains. Scattered about a little grassy opening were seven or eight human skeletons, picked so clean by the wolves that they were white and glistening. But the lad knew that wolves had not caused their deaths. Bullet, arrow and lance had done the work. He shuddered again and again, but he was too much of the mountain ranger and plainsman now to turn aside because of horror.
He concluded that the skeletons represented perhaps two families, surprised and slaughtered by the Sioux. Several of them were small, evidently those of children, and he arrived at the number two because he saw in the bushes near by two of the great wagons of the emigrant camp, overturned and sacked. Just beyond was a small, clear stream which obviously had caused the victims to stop there.
Will walked back slowly and gravely to his comrades.
"Did you find water, young William?" asked the Little Giant jovially.
"I did," replied the lad briefly.
"Then why does that gloom set upon your brow?"
"Because I found something else, too."
"What else do we need? Water fur ourselves an' the animals is all we want."
"But I found something else, I tell you, Tom Bent, and it was not a sight pleasant to see."
The Little Giant noticed the shudder in the lad's tones, and he asked more seriously: