“The fellow who surrendered this morning?” asked the ranger.
“That’s the chap.”
“Jackson was telling me about him to-day, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the fellow is a spy. And to think that Mason would commission him as a scout! I must say that our army officers are forgetting the lessons they learned in the rebellion.”
“It looks that way,” said Kit. “I’ve been watching the Indian nigh all day, but I’ve see’d nothing suspicious about him.”
“Well, he may be in earnest. I’d like to see him.”
“Then we’ll walk out a bit. I want you to see Davis and Gillem afore we go back to the caves. Blast the luck! I wish our plot to kidnap Jack had succeeded. I know something now. That young Oregonian who come into camp the other day was Rafe Todd.”
“He was. I learned enough from the Indians to satisfy me on that point,” said ’Van Harris. “He lay behind a rock while you and Artena conversed with Gillem, and it was he who denounced the girl as a traitress. He beat her to the cave.”
Kit South did not speak, but gritted his teeth with rage, and they left the tent.
The young ranger had completely recovered from his wound, and seemed much refreshed by his day’s rest. He belonged to McKay’s Lava-Bed Rangers; and had been of signal value to the service since the inauguration of the Modoc war. He had offered his services simultaneously with Kit South, and at once enlisted under the chieftainship of the Warm Spring hero.
Like the giant scout, he could speak the Modoc tongue without difficulty, and was well versed in the cunning toils of Indian warfare.