He dare not move; the slightest action would betray him to the beasts, and he seemed some dark excrescence in the body of the tree.
All at once the leader of the troop, a huge half-wolf dog, walked slowly toward him!
Cromer uttered an oath, and griped his knife firmer than ever.
But a prolonged and peculiar whistle brought the dog to a halt.
His master was calling him!
A dozen like whistles followed the first, and the trader beheld the famished canines stand irresolute.
Had the Indians discovered him, or were they young braves who wished to call the troop nearer, that they might pour a deadly volley into their ranks?
“Heaven keep them from me!” he cried; “but if—they’re comin’ fur me, by Jehu!”
The leader had turned to the trader again, for the calls had died away, and with the nerve characteristic of the trapper and fur-buyer of the lakes, he awaited the onset.
On one of the fingers of the left hand, thrown slightly forward as a shield, glittered Silver Rifle’s fateful ring, while below the tightly clenched members of the right, there was the soft gleaming of yet bloodless steel.