“We’ll crawl off in this direction, in the shadow of the lodge; be sure to keep the blanket over you,” said the scout. “Be careful, too, that you move slowly and cautiously. I shouldn’t have risked my life in here if I had fully understood the situation. I’m glad I met you.”
Jim Betts coughed out a low, wheezing laugh.
“My achin’ throat don’t echo that sentiment,” he said; “it’d feel a heap easier if I hadn’t met you. I never met up with a man had a grip like that; I thought my neck was bein’ crushed in.”
The scout did not echo the laugh; at this distance the thing looked too serious.
“I might have killed you, Betts,” he said. “I saw you getting that knife, and——”
“Then I ripped out somethin’ in purty plain English, and you tumbled. It’s all right now. But I reckon my throat will ache fer a week. When I have a heap of time I’m goin’ ter see if you can’t choke an iron bolt so that it will holler.”
They crept along under the blanket, slipping it over the ground, until they had cautiously crossed an open space; then found themselves within the shadow of another lodge.
They were moving away from the centre of disturbance and apparently increasing their chances.
“Whar did ye leave the rest o’ the boys?” Betts asked, as they stood up in the shadow of this lodge.