To his disappointment he saw the apelike figure turn in the direction of those inharmonious sounds.
Betts stopped and listened, called himself softly any number of fools for not getting out of that dangerous place, then went on, still pursuing Gorilla Jake.
There was a fire leaping in front of a lodge, and in and about the lodge he saw many Indian figures; but what they were howling about he could not make out, unless simply noisy because they were drunk. He concluded that the latter must be the explanation.
Then he saw the apelike man, who had been moving toward the Utes, stop beside a lodge, duck his head as if he had heard something, then pass into the tepee.
“Wow!” said Jim Betts, staring. “What’s it mean?”
Anyway, he thought he might be given a chance to dive into that lodge, even though it was almost under the painted noses of the yelling Utes, and grip his intended prisoner. He was too close to the lodge not to try it, reckless as it was.
He was cautious enough to keep the bulk of the lodge between himself and the Indians, and to take all the advantage possible from the shadow cast by the leaping fire; he crouched low, too, so that he seemed to slide his tall form along the ground.
In that manner he gained the rear of the lodge, where he was stopped from proceeding farther by hearing Gorilla Jake talking with Tim Benson. At first Betts thought they had company, for he heard Indian grunts, which came, however, from behind the lodge.
The white men were flinging accusations at each other, as soon as Gorilla Jake entered the lodge; it was apparent that Benson had seen him passing and beckoned or called to him to come in.
“You didn’t have as many of them tablets as you said,” Benson declared.