“We go too,” said Toma, “unless we be more careful. Crazy, them fellows! What harm we do them?”
“No harm,” answered Dick, “unless they feel we’ve no business here on their hunting ground. We are trespassing, when it comes right down to it.”
“This bad medicine land,” Toma asserted. “That’s why free traders no come here. Once in a while mebbe come but never go back.”
“Be quiet!” Sandy expostulated. “I’m feeling creepy enough now. Those Indians steal up on us and disappear again like ghosts. It takes the nerve right out of me.”
“Me too,” said Dick, “but hereafter I, for one, intend to be ready for them. At least, I don’t purpose to be asleep when they come over for their next raid. And I’m going to keep my eyes open as I never kept them open before.”
“Well, we weren’t exactly asleep,” objected Sandy.
“We might just as well have been. I’ll bet that any one of their party could have walked over here and taken a scalp before we would have noticed him.”
Toma rose warily and went over to the packs.
“I think no more danger now,” he called. “We better hurry before dark comes. Lots of work build raft over at river.”
“We’ll have to make two trips down there,” Dick suddenly remembered. “We’ve only one pony now.”