“Yes, life is extinct,” muttered he, and dropping upon his knees he began removing the bear’s skin from his body. This done, a low, triumphant laugh escaped Solomon Strange’s lips, and he lifted the lifeless form in his arms, and carried it a short ways into the woods and hurled it down into a deep, black gorge.
Ten minutes later, a dark, hairy form appeared in the glade. It was the form of Solomon Strange disguised in the bear’s skin.
No one could have told him from Blufe Brandon. Their movements were similar, and their size exactly the same.
“So far I have been successful,” he murmured. “I stand in Black Bear’s disguise; and now if I can only have the nerve and cunning to occupy his position among the red-skins for a few days, I will make these old hills stand aghast with wonder and startling revelations. The Cheyenne tongue I can handle to a demonstration, and I believe I can imitate Black Bear’s voice exactly.
“And then, there’s Duval Dungarvon; but I can hoodwink him easy enough. Yes, to-morrow noon I will meet him at the Lone Pine, get a synopsis of the ‘initiatory ceremony’ into the order of road-agents and cut-throats. Ah, Solomon Strange! a desperate game is yours, and for what?—to solve a dark mystery, and rub out the stains of a dark crime that lays concealed behind it, but—”
His musings were here brought to an abrupt termination, by suddenly entering the opening in which stood the Indian encampment, while a few paces off sat an Indian sentinel.
“Will he challenge me?” the false chief mentally asked.
Then he knew that the sentinel would see that it was Black Bear’s disguise, and allow him to pass. And so he did, with only a low, guttural exclamation at sight of the great chief.
As Strange entered the outskirts of the village, he saw that a large fire was burning in front of the council-lodge, and that a number of warriors were singing and dancing around it.
“I’ll swow,” muttered Strange, “I’m going to be drawn right into business, the first thing. I’d rather kept a little to myself a day or so, until I got the exact run of things—heavens!”