“Suits me,” replied Dick gratefully.
Leroi dived into his packs and soon brought out several boxes of ammunition, with which Dick and Toma filled their pockets.
A half hour later Dick and Toma bid goodbye to Gaston Leroi, and watched his dog team, hauling the wounded corporal, disappear over a long hill. Then the two boys set out over the back trail at a jog trot. They were determined not to rest their heads until they had discovered what had become of Sandy.
“Do you think it was Govereau?” Dick asked Toma as they hurried along.
“I not know,” replied Toma, who was slightly in the lead. “Tracks show only two fella keetch Sandy. Hope snow no more; if not we trail um easy.”
They did not speak again until they had reached the scene of their battle with the wolves, where they picked up the trail.
“They’re going north,” Dick spoke, after studying the tracks. “It must be some of Henderson’s men, though it seems queer Govereau would come this far south.”
“That Govereau, he bad fella; he go everywhere. No ’fraid anybody. Mebbe I see that Many Scar.”
Dick fell silent at the mention of the scar faced Indian. He knew Toma was thinking of his dead brother, and was planning revenge if he met the murderer, who he believed to be the scar faced Indian. Dick knew nothing to say which would change Toma’s mind in this respect, so he said nothing as they forged onward at a mile-eating pace.
They had traveled nearly ten miles into a deeply wooded vicinity, when the tracks began to grow fresher, and they slowed their pace. Presently they rounded a bend, and in a tiny valley, drained by a winding, frozen creek, they came upon an Indian village of a dozen tepees.