"Yes, I heard it."
"It wasn't much louder than the dropping of an acorn, but it was a rifle shot."
"O' course it wuz a rifle shot. Neither you nor I could be mistook about that."
"And you noticed where it came from?"
"Straight from the place where Paul and Tom and Long Jim Hart are."
"Which may mean that their presence has been discovered and that they are besieged."
"That's the way I look at it."
"And we must make a rescue."
"That's true, an' we've got to be so mighty keerful about it that we ain't took an' scalped and burned by the savages, afore we've had a single chance at makin' a rescue."
The thought in the minds of the two was the same. They were sure now from the absence of the larger smoke column that the main force had gone south, but that the smaller had remained to take their comrades, whose presence, by some chance, they had discovered. They lay closely hidden for a while, and they heard the report of a second shot, followed by a mere shred of sound which they took to be an Indian yell, although they were not sure.