“The house of the tall old pale-face and pretty girl.”
“Empty, Silver Hand? You must be mistaken. They were to wait for me.”
“But they gone, sure,” persisted the chief. “Silver Hand stop at cabin to tell them about the big coward; but he find nobody in house. The dog, too, was gone; but Silver Hand find paper on the door—paper with pale-face words on it.”
The chief produced a piece of paper from his bosom as he spoke, and handed it to the trapper.
It was night now, but the light of the rising moon enabled Wolf-Cap to decipher the rude writing on the sheet.
“We have gone to Strong’s with the Logans. We left at sundown, and you will find us in the old fort.”
Thus read the message on the door, and the trapper bit his lip when he looked up at the young warrior.
“Mebbe we’ll find ’em there and mebbe we won’t,” he said angrily. “I guess the Logans were frightened nigh to death, and would give old Levi no rest, until he promised to guide them to Strong’s. I thought he had a head of his own, and he promised to wait for me, too.”
Wolf-Cap was silent for several moments, and the Indian regarded him with a puzzled expression of countenance.
“When pale-faces leave lodge?” he questioned at length.