CHAPTER XI
ON THE BANK OF THE YELLOWSTONE
“Bad news for us, Dick,” muttered Roger, shaking his head despondently.
“I am sorry it had to happen,” the other remarked; “but while there’s life there’s hope. Jasper is no novice in woodcraft. Those Frenchmen and their red allies will find it no easy task to capture him. And even if they should we are bound to try to bring about his release.”
“It must have been that François Lascelles and his rascally son, Alexis, surely,” ventured Roger.
“Yes, I am sure of it,” Dick admitted, frowning.
“They were not satisfied with destroying the paper we had sent home, but came back to keep us from getting Jasper to sign another. Oh! they are determined to steal our homes away from us! They will stop at nothing to take them!”
“All is not lost yet. Remember that we have always managed to pull through in times past. We shall again; something seems to tell me so.”
When Dick said this he looked so determined and resolute that, as usual, Roger found his own spirits wonderfully revived.
“I complain a lot, I know,” he remarked, as though ashamed of his actions, “but all the same I give up hard. Deep down there’s a never-say-die feeling in my heart. When you say we will keep everlastingly at it you express what I feel.”
Both felt better after that. They knew that it was useless to pay any further attention to the faint trail of Jasper Williams and his two companions. They must trust partly to luck in order to once more run across the man they so urgently desired to see.