“Guard, turn out!—All hands on deck; come on, there.”
Sailor-like, he was on his feet and into his boots in a couple of seconds, and was running out, sword in hand, before the cry could be repeated.
“Hy-yah; hy-yah!” someone was shouting; and the boatswain was answering grimly:
“Yes; we’ll ‘hy-yah’ ye. Git off’n them horses will ye?”
By the firelight Wise could make out three mounted Indians, a fourth on foot, and, near him, a dead horse that had, no doubt, fallen before the sentry’s rifle. Around them stood his ten sailors, every man with his rifle covering one or other of the redskins; while the trappers, less accustomed to abrupt night-calls, appeared 158 more slowly, rubbing their eyes and cocking their guns.
“Hy-yah! Hy-yah, Mason!” Again the high-pitched nasal voice.
The head trapper, who came stumbling out of his hut, shouted a few words in the Shoshonee dialect, and, immediately after:
“Don’t fire, there; don’t let ’em fire, Mr. Wise; they’ve copped the wrong men. These are friends; Comanches,” and a great laugh from the trappers echoed over the camp.
“I challenged ’em first,” said the sentry who had fired. “How was I to know who they was?”
Mason, the chief trapper, spoke for a moment or two with the redskin who had hailed him; then signed to him and his companions to take their seats by the fire.