“Yes, that’s a fact,” added Dick, just as if he meant to say that any one with eyes could see it.
“But, if you thought this would happen, why didn’t we do something?” asked Roger.
Dick shrugged his shoulders.
“Why should we try to stop the old squaw if she thought it best to leave us in this way? She is naturally suspicious of all whites. And perhaps, for all we know, she might have thought we meant to take that little girl away to our people. So, just like an Indian, she watched her chance, and while we slept crept out of camp. Let them go, Roger; even if we wanted to, we couldn’t spare time to look for them now. We have to find that river to-day, you know.”
“Yes, I think you’re right, Dick,” admitted the other, slowly, as he grasped the idea. “And anyhow, she didn’t take my blanket. I ought to be thankful for that, I suppose. Indians are born thieves, they say. But see how she wrapped it about this piece of wood, just to make me think one of them might be lying under the folds. What’s that lying on top of the blanket, Dick?”
“Looks to me like a piece of fresh bark,” replied the other, as he stepped forward.
“Oh! it may be a message!” cried Roger, his eyes sparkling.
“Just what it is,” answered his cousin. “See, she has drawn it in pictures, for you know that’s the only way Indians can communicate their ideas to each other. Here is what she means to stand for our camp, with four of us sitting around a fire, two being men and the others women, for they have skirts. Then you can see the last two creeping away on their hands and knees. And here they come into what I guess must be an Indian village.”
“How easy to understand what she wants us to know,” declared Roger, much struck by the manner in which the old squaw had left word that she and the little Indian girl were even then on their way to the village where they belonged.
“I thought something like this might happen,” Dick said, presently, “when I saw the squaw hiding small pieces of meat last night, instead of eating them herself, hungry though she was. She meant to keep them for the child. A warrior, or an old squaw, may be able to go without a bite for days, but not a child.”