All was as silent as death ahead of them, and Hugh considered this an ominous sign. Had the foreigners come back for their wounded, they must have made some sort of outcry, and the lack of such sounds could only mean an absence of care for those who had probably been shot down, and now lay there suffering.
CHAPTER IX.
THE HELPING HAND.
“Seems to me we ought to be getting pretty near the place,” commented Alec, as they jogged along at a fair clip, even Billy showing himself persistent as a runner, though he could hardly be placed in the same class as some of the other fellows.
“We are,” Hugh told him, shortly. “I expect to see signs of that settlement at any minute now.”
“Terribly quiet, I think,” remarked Bud Morgan.
“It always is just before a storm breaks,” chirped Billy, between breaths.
“In this case it’s the deadly lull after the storm has done its worst,” suggested Ralph Kenyon. “Lots of times I’ve known ’em to curve around and come back again over the same old ground.”
“Yes,” added Arthur, “and they say the second time is apt to be a whole lot worse than the first. If those foreigners get mad after what’s happened, goodness knows how the thing will end.”
“Well, I’d keep that white flag in plain sight right along, if I was you, Hugh,” advised Alec.
“That’s what I am doing, Alec,” the scout master replied.