“No—Blackfeet, and hard fighters,” the man replied. “I do not believe they would have allowed us to escape, only that they seemed most anxious to get Jasper Williams, for all of them pursued him, some in boats and the rest on land.”
This struck Dick as peculiar. Why should Jasper Williams count any more with the hostile Blackfeet than the other two explorers? His hair would make a no better looking scalp than theirs!
Dick was still pondering over this as he shook the two men by the hand and expressed the hope that they would meet with no further troubles until they gained the camp and gave his message to Captain Lewis.
“Have you arrived at any conclusion, Hardy,” he observed, “as to why the Indians should want to capture Jasper Williams so badly that they would neglect you two, and even let you escape?”
“We talked that over, Mordaunt and myself, while we were in the pit,” came the answer, “and both of us decided that the men who were with the Blackfeet must have hated our companion, and had promised a reward to the redskins if he was captured. That only would explain the mystery, we thought.”
“Why, were there white men with the Indians?” cried Dick, beginning to see a gleam of light. “Were they English, or frontiersmen, or French?”
“They must have been French, because we heard them calling out, and it was in that language. They seemed wild with anger because Jasper had not fallen into their hands. In the boats they kept shouting to the paddlers, and urging them to greater exertion. Yes, the Frenchmen must hate our companion, and I fear he will never live to come back to us again.”
As the two men walked away, heading toward the northeast, Dick and Roger exchanged significant looks, for they now knew the worst.