“I was dead sure it must be our game, Dick, indeed I was. But now I see you are right, and it is a part of the rocky spur. How about that brush heap ahead there; I may have been mistaken, Dick, but I thought I could see something moving. It is too low down to hide a big buffalo, but Indians might be lying there, waiting to knock us over. I hope they have some pemmican along with them, for we could take it away, you see, Dick; and even dry pemmican would taste pretty good now.”
Dick began to feel a little worried about his cousin. It seemed to him as though Roger was getting light-headed on account of his privations.
“Oh! if only we could catch up with that miserable buffalo bull,” Dick muttered to himself as he tramped along. “Either that, or else run across an elk. Something has got to happen soon, or I’m afraid Roger will keel over, or perhaps go out of his mind.”
The situation was getting more desperate. Try as he would, Dick could discover no way in which it might be alleviated. They must keep on constantly and hope that before long they would come up with the animal they had been tracking with the pertinacity of wolves.
He knew they were not making anything like the progress they could have had to their credit if they had partaken of their customary portion of food. Weakness had seized upon them, and, while the spirit was willing, the flesh seemed to be lacking in the power to obey as promptly as they would have liked.
Roger continued to discover suspicious objects from time to time. Then his mood would change, and he could be heard laughing softly to himself, as though the whole thing was appearing to him now in the guise of a great joke.
“Poor fellow!” muttered Dick, when one of these spasms had passed off, leaving Roger more morose than ever; “somehow he seems to feel it so much more than either of us. I’ve got to the last hole in my belt now, and I hope there may be no need of my making a fresh one.”
When he looked toward Mayhew he saw that the scout’s face had begun to show signs of renewed eagerness. This gave Dick a thrill, as hope once more commenced to flutter in his breast. Certainly Mayhew would not look like that unless he had good reason to believe they were now close upon the heels of the roving buffalo.
Then Mayhew raised a warning finger; at the same time he nodded his head toward the muttering Roger. Dick comprehended the action; it meant that some means should be taken to keep the other quiet, lest he warn their quarry of their coming long before there was any necessity of such a happening, and thus endanger the success of their stalking game.
Accordingly Dick hastened to get alongside his cousin. He laid a hand on Roger’s arm, and the other, raising his head, turned a pair of red eyes upon Dick.