“What's up with you, Jerry?” said Cameron impatiently.
“Me hear dat when A'm small boy—me.”
Then Cameron remembered that it was Sioux blood that colored the life-stream in Jerry's veins.
“Oh, pshaw!” said Cameron with gruff impatience. “Come on!” But he was more shaken than he cared to acknowledge by that weird unearthly cry and by its all too obvious effect upon the iron nerves of that little half-breed at his side.
“Dey mak' dat cry when dey go meet Custer long 'go,” said Jerry, making no motion to go forward.
“What are you waiting for?” said Cameron harshly. “Come along, unless you want to go back.”
His words stung the half-breed into action. Cameron could feel him in the dark jerk his hand away and hear him grit his teeth.
“Bah! You go hell!” he muttered between his clenched teeth.
“That is better,” said Cameron cheerfully. “Now we will look in upon these fire-eaters.”
Sharp to the right they turned behind a cliff, and then back almost upon their trail, still to the right, through a screen of spruce and poplar, and found themselves in a hole of a rock that lengthened into a tunnel blacker than the night outside. Pursuing this tunnel some little distance they became aware of a light that grew as they moved toward it into a fire set in the middle of a wide cavern. The cavern was of irregular shape, with high-vaulted roof, open to the sky at the apex and hung with glistening stalactites. The floor of this cavern lay slightly below them, and from their position they could command a full view of its interior.