More than once the dark figure ahead came to a pause, and lay as still as a log. Sandy was keenly awake to the situation, and copied his actions to the letter. On one occasion a couple of dogs came running past, having evidently been hunting on their own account in the forest. They stopped to sniff the air, but luckily they were not on the windward side of the crouching figures; and so the presence of a paleface was not discovered; for soon they went on among the lodges, to lie down and rest after their long chase.
Another time it was a moving warrior who caused alarm. But he seemed to have only been down to the river for a drink, for he walked past the spot where the two shadows lay without any suspicion that anything was amiss.
It was an exciting time for poor Sandy, and his heart seemed to be up in his throat with suspense as he kept his agonized eyes fastened on that tall, dusky figure, until it was lost among the neighboring lodges.
All now seemed well, and the coast clear. Rapidly Blue Jacket advanced. No longer was he content to wriggle like the rattlesnake. He had first arisen to his knees, and finally to his feet. True, he limped sadly, and Sandy knew that, with an Indian's stoicism, his guide must be repressing the groans that a white boy would have uttered.
"He's game, all right," Sandy was saying to himself, filled with gratitude toward the young Indian; "good Blue Jacket! Will I ever forget this? May my right arm wither if I should! And now, I wonder where Bob is?"
They had gone some little distance from the village, so that there no longer seemed to be any danger that they would be seen if they walked erect. Sandy had impulsively thrown an arm about his companion, meaning to help him. Perhaps at another time the proud young Shawanee might have indignantly declined to accept any assistance; but he was weak, and he had learned to feel a singular affection for his two white brothers.
They came to a stop near a tangle of thickets.
"Listen!" said Blue Jacket.
Then close by, so that it actually startled the white boy, came the bark of the red fox, twice repeated. And he remembered what his guide had said about the signal which Bob was to recognize. Anxiously Sandy waited, every nerve on edge for fear lest his brother might have gone.
There was a stir in the thicket, and then came a low voice saying: