“Not out of the fire yet!” muttered the road-agent, and then he drew the boy aside.
“Yes; the whispering Indians lie. Squatting Bear once kicked Mouseskin.”
“Where is the white girl that Feel-the-Sky brought to the wigwam?”
The Sioux boy started at the mention of his victim's name, and glanced around suspiciously.
Then he came up to Midnight Jack with a look of trust in his eyes.
“Will Running Water keep the words that Mouseskin gives him?” asked the boy.
Then from the lips of the Sioux fell the story of his fight with Feel-the-Sky; his discomfiture by Dora followed.
Midnight Jack listened without a word until the boy finished.
“She it was who struck Mouseskin, and took his horn.”
Could the boy have spoken truly? Was his young sister alone in the woods of Sioux-land, and liable to fall into the hands of Golden George?
Before Mouseskin could reply there came from the Cottonwood forest the barking of Myriad Indian dogs.
“What means that, Mouseskin?” cried the road-agent, grasping the red boy's arm.
“The white boy!” exclaimed the little Sioux. “The red boys have taken him into the woods; they have tied him to a tree, and set the hungry dogs upon him.”
The road-agent darted suddenly away, leaving Mouseskin bewildered in his tracks.
“If I could steal back and get the drop on you, Midnight Jack! No! that would not be fair after my word. He forced it from me—curse my stupid ears that would not hear his steps! Why not go back—down into the village and call him out? My word—ay, that's it. Golden George keeps that!”
“I will go away. To-morrow is the sun-dance. Tanglefoot will tear the mask off from Midnight Jack. I will wait for that event then Golden George will go back.”
Not far from the hill the speaker came suddenly upon a lithe-limbed horse, secured by a leathern tether to a young cottonwood. The cord permitted the steed to pick at the sparse herbage that grew about the roots of the tree, and a light whinny greeted the Sport.
From among the low hanging limbs of the cottonwood the Sport drew a light saddle, which he speedily adjusted to the horse's back, and sprung into the leathern seat.
“I don't like this Indian guise,” he said, vexatiously. “I'm not at home in it, and then Golden George is not obliged to wear it in Sioux land, anyway.”