“Don’t speak so loud, Roger, he seems to be making a motion with his arm as if to point ahead; then he puts his finger on his lips, which must mean that he wants us to keep as still as a mouse. I really believe we must be close by, or else he’s discovered signs of Sioux, and wants us to be on our guard.”
“No, he’s beckoning to us to come on, now, Dick, and he wouldn’t do that if he believed there were enemies around. It must be the lick,” Roger went on, lowering his voice to a whisper, at which the Mandan brave smiled, and nodded his head, as though he approved.
They began to exercise more caution as they crept forward. The boys, being hunters themselves, noticed several things that gave them cause to look upon their guide as one who knew his business.
“See how he sneaks along, with never a sound as his feet touch the ground,” Roger whispered in the ear of his companion. “Did you ever see anything to beat that? No matter how sharp your hearing might be, you’d never catch the first sound with the Wolf moving along.”
“And another thing, Roger, you can see that the breeze is right in our faces. He circled around a little, for I noticed it, and wondered why at the time. Now I know. It was to come in at the lick so as to not alarm any animal that might happen to be there ahead of us.”
“Plenty of timber around,” remarked the other, signifying with a nod of his head the trees they were passing.
“Yes, lots of it; and now, let’s drop all this talk,” suggested Dick, after which silence fell upon them.
They tried to imitate the stealthy manner of advance shown by the Wolf, but realized that they would have considerable to learn before they might equal his noiseless method of placing each foot on the ground, with a quick, accurate movement. Roger believed that a panther could never have walked with a more velvety tread than did that agile Mandan warrior, accustomed to this sort of thing from childhood.
It began to grow a little irksome after a while; but they believed that it must soon come to an end, and that thought comforted both lads.
If anything, the caution of the Wolf increased. This would seem to indicate that they must be getting very close to the end of their journey, and both boys began to imagine they could tell just where the lick must lie.