The Indians now packed up the buffalo robes on which they had slept, and the mouthful of provisions they had taken with them.
“I don’t believe a word of what they say about your friends,” said Cameron to Dick in a low tone while the Indians were thus engaged. “Depend upon it they hope to hide them till they can send to the settlements and get a ransom, or till they get an opportunity of torturing them to death before their women and children when they get back to their own village. But we’ll baulk them, my friend, do not fear.”
The Indians were soon ready to start, for they were lumbered with marvellously little camp equipage. In less than half an hour after their discovery they were running like deer ahead of the cavalcade in the direction of the Peigan camp.
Chapter Nineteen.
Adventures with the Peigans—Crusoe does good service as a discoverer—The savages outwitted—The rescue.
A run of twenty miles brought the travellers to a rugged defile in the mountains, from which they had a view of a beautiful valley of considerable extent. During the last two days a steady thaw had been rapidly melting away the snow, so that it appeared only here and there in the landscape in dazzling patches. At the distance of about half a mile from where they halted to breathe the horses before commencing the descent into this vale, several thin wreaths of smoke were seen rising above the trees.
“Is that your camp?” inquired Cameron, riding up to the Indian runners who stood in a group in front, looking as fresh after their twenty miles’ run as though they had only had a short walk.
To this they answered in the affirmative, adding that there were about two hundred Peigans there.