“Maybe Sipsa followed the sledge path,” Dick said, as Toma and he stood there contemplating the next move. “You’re good at trailing, Toma; see if you can’t find out whether three instead of two pairs of snowshoes followed this sledge.”
Toma bent over, his keen eyes glancing hither and thither along the packed snow. Only a moment he studied, then he straightened up. “Three pair snowshoes go long here,” he declared positively.
Dick had perfect confidence in Toma’s judgment, and was sure they had found just the direction taken by Sipsa when he left the camp. As the policemen had departed over the same path over which they had crossed the island, Dick believed it possible that Sipsa might have taken it into his head to return to his people.
“We’ll follow his tracks for a ways,” he voiced his decision at last. “I want to make sure that Sipsa stuck to the back trail. If he hasn’t turned off half way up the glacier, then I’m pretty certain he’s decided to go back to his people. In that case he has such a start on us that about all we can do is let him go.”
With this purpose in mind Dick and Toma started out along the sledge trail. An hour’s steady travel without mishap failed to discover any deviation in Sipsa’s progress.
“He may run into the policemen,” Dick finally spoke. “If he does, they’ll send him back in a hurry.”
“I think him go home alright,” was Toma’s brief reply. “Mebbe him no like work for white man.”
“Well, that was a good one, Toma,” Dick grinned. “I suppose you’ll be quitting us next.”
The young Indian turned a pair of black inscrutable eyes upon the white lad, for whom he had risked his life so often. Dick could feel that he was rebuked without hearing Toma say a word. He stretched out his hand and placed it on the Indian boy’s shoulder. “I didn’t mean it, Toma, honest I didn’t. I was only joking. I know you’d never desert Sandy and me.”
The ghost of a smile traced the young Indian’s dark face and Dick knew that Toma had forgiven.