Cliff and Tom unhooked their tent flap and without widening its opening much, looked into the dim, starlit night.
Nicky pushed his face between them. Each felt that the others were tense, Nicky was trembling a little. They stared and listened.
From a greater distance came the crackle of a broken twig.
Without a word Cliff pushed into the open and stared around. Then he saw figures, silent, drifting like spectres through the night, shadows with lumpy heads.
At first he almost cried out at a touch on his arm but in the instant that he controlled his impulse he realized that it came from Nicky’s grip on his arm.
“It’s Indians!” Nicky gasped.
“Yes,” said Tom, at his side; then he added in a puzzled way, “But they are going away from us.”
“It’s our Indians——” Cliff said, “They’re running away. Hey!” he shouted, then, poised to race after them, he called to his comrades to waken Bill and Mr. Whitley; but they were already awake and emerging dazedly from their tent as Cliff thrust the ground behind him with racing feet, in hot pursuit of figures now making no effort to be quiet as they galloped away.
It was a hazardous pursuit in the dark and on a strange mountain path; but Cliff had observed, as was his habit, while they climbed earlier in the day: he knew when to swerve to avoid a heavy boulder, he seemed to avoid by instinct the more pebbled and slippery parts.
While Nicky and Tom, after shouting the news, pounded in pursuit he overtook the hindmost runner.