“It will be safer for one alone to move through this brush, so remain here and keep a sharp lookout, while I go forward. Under no circumstances must an alarm be made, and do not use the gun except in self-defense, and in such an event do not wait for me, but return to the wagon with all haste.”
“How long will you be gone?” asked George.
“If I do not return in a half hour, you may be at liberty to go back.”
“But suppose they capture you?”
“If they get me you will know it.”
“How?”
“My gun will tell you that.”
John cautiously moved forward so quietly that George did not hear his motions, and he could then appreciate the ability of such a woodsman to creep upon an enemy.
As he approached the camp it became more obvious that they had to deal with a band of warriors, and within less than two hundred feet of the main body he spied the first pickets. He knew the custom of the natives in this respect, as they never scouted singly, so that he was not surprised to see two together.
Cautiously moving away from them, to the left, he again approached in the direction of the center of the camp, and after making a narrow circle to be sure that no other pickets were in the immediate vicinity, carefully advanced to a point not one hundred feet from the outer circle.