“Ye vill surely come on de tracks dis naight or de morrow,” replied the botanist, riding forward, after Bevan had secured the carcass of the deer to his saddle-bow, “bot ye must have patience, yoong blood be always too hote. All in goot time.”
With this reply Fred was fain to content himself, for no amount of pressure availed to draw anything more satisfactory out of their strange guide.
Before sunset they had penetrated some distance into the Sawback range, and then proceeded to make their encampment for the night under the spreading branches of a lordly pine!
Chapter Thirteen.
Tables are frequently turned in this world in more senses than one. As was said in the last chapter, the romantic pair who were in search of the Indians did not find those for whom they sought but as fickle fortune willed it, those for whom they sought found them. It happened thus.
Soon after the Rose of Oregon and her young champion, with their captors, had passed through the Long Gap, crossed the plain, and entered the Sawback Hills, they fell in with a band of twenty Indians, who from their appearance and costume evidently belonged to the same tribe as their captors. From the manner in which they met also, it seemed that they had been in search of each other, and had something interesting to communicate, for they gesticulated much, pointed frequently to the sky, and to various directions of the compass, chattered excitedly, showed their brilliant teeth in fitful gleams, and glittered quite awfully about the eyes.
They paid little attention at first to their prisoners, who remained sitting on their steeds looking on with interest and some anxiety.
“O Betty, what would I not give to have my arms free just now! What a chance it would be for a bold dash and a glorious run!”