Had he also completed so expertly the sand painting after perhaps destroying Dan’s picture?
In the cave there was considerable evidence that Miquel was indeed a man of many talents. On one of the walls, he had marked a strange design with charcoal. In another place, he had drawn characters not unlike those which appeared on the completed sand painting.
“We’re wasting our time trying to make him understand,” Brad finally said. “We can’t persuade him to leave, that’s certain. Now what’ll we do?”
“Leave him here,” Red suggested. “He’ll get along all right until we can get back to camp and tell Mr. Hatfield.”
“He’ll be safe providing White Nose and Eagle Feather don’t come along. But if they should find the entrance to this cave—wow!”
“Why borrow trouble?” shrugged Red, always inclined to take the optimistic view. “They were a long distance down stream when we saw ’em last.”
“But they may return.”
“And if they do, they’ll notice smoke coming out of the cave entrance,” Dan predicted. “I guess we’ll have to take that chance though.”
Brad nodded and warned: “We can’t stay here much longer, unless we want to miss the Pack pow-wow. We’ve done our best to tip him off.”
“It’s getting late,” Dan said uneasily. “You know it took quite awhile to get to the cave.”