Cayuse called back something which was drowned by the rush of the water, and beckoned with his hand.
“Kain’t hear what he says,” said Blake, “but he wants us ter foller. We’d better go, I reckon. The hosses will be safe enough here.”
Dropping their bridle-reins, the three men proceeded to follow the boy.
It was a stiff climb to the top of the gully wall, but when the men pulled themselves over and got alongside Cayuse, they had a good view of the ore-dump of the Forty Thieves—or, rather, of the place where the ore-dump ought to be.
The dump, some seven or eight feet high, together with the entire flat on which it had been piled, was covered with water!
The boy, his eyes fixed on the swirling, seething flood, dropped to his knees and began a weird, monotonous chant. The rush of air along the troubled waves caught up the boy’s voice and tossed it back and forth in uncanny cadences. Now high, now low, swelled the chant, as the Piute words burst from the Indian’s lips.
“Thunder!” Blake shouted in Tenny’s ears, “it’s a death-song.”
“Whose death is he croonin’ erbout?” returned Tenny; “Buffler Bill’s?”
“It’s hard ter tell who he’s——”
Blake broke off with a wild yell. At that instant the morning sun struck fire from a blade which Cayuse had plucked from his belt and lifted above his bare breast, point down.