"Now--now--you,
you gray-eyed--devil, kin I--sit up?"
The other nodded. He had drawn the fangs of the wolf, and now that he
no longer feared, a sudden, unexplainable feeling of sympathy took
possession of him. Yet he drew farther away before slipping his own
gun into its sheath. For a time neither spoke, their eyes peering
across the ridge. Murphy sputtered and swore, but his victorious
companion neither spoke nor moved. There were several distant smokes
out to the northward now, evidently the answering signals of different
bands of savages, while far away, beneath the shadow of the low bluffs
bordering the stream, numerous black, moving dots began to show against
the light brown background. Hampton, noticing that Murphy had stopped
swearing to gaze, swung forward his field-glasses for a better view.
"They are Indians, right enough," he said, at last. "Here, take a
look, Murphy. I could count about twenty in that bunch, and they are
travelling north."
The older man adjusted the tubes to his eyes, and looked long and
steadily at the party. Then he slowly swung the glasses toward the
northwest, apparently studying the country inch by inch, his jaws
working spasmodically, his unoccupied hand clutching nervously at the
grass.
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