They volunteer for the duty, but not without show of reluctance. It is anything but agreeable.
“Let’s leave our horses. We’ll be better without them. If there’s any one on the ground, we can steal back without being seen.”
It is the young planter’s proposition, and Buck consents to it.
They slip out of their saddles, pass the bridles to two of those who stay behind, and then, like a couple of cougars stealing upon the unsuspicious fawn, silently make their way through the underwood.
The clearing is soon under their eyes, with all it contains.
There is the carcase of the bear, black with buzzards, and the skin still hanging from the tree.
But the object of horror they expected to see hanging upon another tree is not there. That sight is spared them.
There is no body on the branch, no corpse underneath it. Living or dead, the Indian is gone.
His absence is far from re-assuring them; the more so as, on scanning the branch, they perceive, still suspended from it, a piece of the rope they had so adroitly set to ensnare him.
Even across the glade they can see that it has been severed with the clean cut of a knife, instead of, as they could have wished, given way under its weight.