The wagons stood backed up to the edge of the ravine, and back of them the ground was soft, in some places muddy.
Neowage pointed silently. Joshua Peniman hurried to his side.
"White man print," he grunted, indicating a well-defined footmark in the muddy earth at the back of the Carroll wagon.
Joshua Peniman stooped and examined it carefully.
The sharp edges of a hard leather sole and the imprint of a boot heel were plainly discernible.
A white man!
With perplexed face he stood staring at the imprint.
That Indians might attack them was perfectly understandable, but that a white man should be among them—that a white man was one of those howling demons who had set upon his camp the night before—was a thing that he could not understand.
Neowage glanced sharply at his feet.
"Not you mark?"