The footsteps of Ridgar and Maren were echoing down the rocky gap.
It had been a promising escape, a neat plan well carried out, and there
was but one thing lacking to its fulfilment,--another step to pace the
deserted lodge of captives.
Across in the darkness among the Bois-Brules one ear had lain close to
the tell-tale earth, one evil face peered unsleeping among the dusky
shapes of the camp, a swarthy face with a white lock on its temple.
Keener than all the rest, Bois DesCaut, driven by personal hate,
listened to all the sounds of night.
And he had heard a changing in the steps that passed and repassed, that
separated and came together, before that lodge across the sleeping
mob,--a change, a little silence, and then the steps again that
presently thinned to ONE,--one step that paced evenly, with a measured
tread, a moccasined step like that of an Indian, yet somehow alien in
its firmness and swing.
One step where there should have been two,--and the half-breed trapper
raised himself and gave the first "Hi! Hi!"
Like startled wolves they were up all around him in a moment and down
on that empty tepee with its one sentry!
A torch flared redly with the sudden revealing of a slim youth in
buckskins and two Nakonkirhirinon warriors deep in the Great Sleep.
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