“A spy?” cried Kit South. “A white man has more sense than to spy about a camp that holds Donald McKay and Kit South.”
“Anyhow, he spy,” reiterated Artena. “Artena heard Jack say that young white man sleep in Gillem’s camp to-night, and that he would soon know what soldiers going to do.”
“Then I don’t go till he’s caught,” said the scout. “Come, Artena, we’ll go and put Gillem on his guard. Plenty of time for the other thing, you know.”
The girl assented, and the twain deserted the spot, and moved toward the camp.
If the young man referred to was a spy in the interest of Captain Jack, his end was near at hand, for Gillem would treat him to a rope immediately after his capture.
The twain had not proceeded a dozen paces toward the camp when the figure of a man rose from behind a great rock near the spot where they had conversed.
He was clad in the well-known garb of the Oregonian, and rested a long rifle on the stone as he gained his feet.
“So you’re going to tell Gillem about the spy, eh?” he ejaculated in a sneering tone, looking after the couple. “But they’ve got to catch a man before they hang him, and Gillem won’t do neither, I’m thinking. Chris South, how I’d like to put a bullet in your back. I could get away after doing it now,” and the gun was lifted from the stone. “There’s an old grudge between us, but I’ll not settle it now. No, I want to tell you something before I take your worthless life, which will not be long.”
Then, after a pause:
“I wish I had been nearer them. I missed a good many words, but caught enough to know that Artena and the old scout has some deviltry afoot, and if that gal pokes her head into Jack’s camp ag’in, she’ll never get to pull it out any more.”