“I? I’m the scout who was to leave word at the salt-lick; and my name is Jasper Williams!” came the astonishing reply.
What a meeting, after they had come all these hundreds upon hundreds of miles especially to find this man; and now all of them were prisoners in the hands of the savage Sioux!
CHAPTER XXIX
A DESPERATE SITUATION
The surprise of Jasper Williams was overwhelming when he learned that these two lads had braved the dangers of the wilderness, week in and week out, just to find him, so as to get his signature to a document which Dick carried, safely sewed inside the lining of his hunting jacket.
“Of course I’ll be only too glad to put my name on it, if only we can get out of this bad scrape,” the scout declared, after he had heard the story, and shaken the hands of Dick and Roger Armstrong many times. “I know François Lascelles only too well, and it would give me great pleasure to balk his little game; but just now, my brave lads, it looks as if we’d furnish sport for the heathen at the torture post before many days go by; they’re feeling so angry at the whites for coming up here into their country without first making all manner of presents to them.”
At that Roger remembered to tell the scout what a slender hope he and his cousin were hugging to their hearts. Jasper Williams considered it well, but did not seem too sanguine.
“Something might come out of it,” he observed; “but I know Injun nature too well to think the chief will spare us for that reason alone. If the crowd wants to be amused, we’ll be made to run the gauntlet to-morrow at sunrise; and afterwards be burned at the stake, like as not. It’s something I always thought would happen to me. A borderer who has run up against Injuns as much as I have must look forward to the time he’ll be caught napping, as I was, and pay the penalty with his life. But I’m sorry for you, lads, because you’ve got mothers and fathers behind, that’ll mourn if you never come back again; while there’s none to weep for old Jasper Williams.”