CHAPTER XXII

IN THE INDIAN VILLAGE

The young Indian’s first act was to dismiss the guard and wave aside the inquisitive group that had gathered outside the tepee. Then he turned towards Dick, jabbering excitedly, his face wreathed with smiles. He patted the prisoner on the back and laughed uproariously.

His manner indicated plainly his surprise and joy at the unexpected meeting.

“This is a huge joke,” he seemed to be trying to say. “Please don’t worry any more—O fair-skinned stranger. I am the chief’s son. I have unlimited authority. No one shall harm you.”

He went through an amusing pantomime for a few moments, then clutched Dick by the arm and drew him quickly outside, making a sign for him to follow. He led the way to a large tepee, kicked aside the flap and motioned Dick to enter.

The chief, sitting cross-legged just opposite the entrance, was startled into sudden wakefulness by the unexpected interruption. He had, it was quite apparent, been indulging in an early morning nap. His manner was not especially cordial, Dick thought, yet this impression vanished a moment later when, at the conclusion of his son’s brief explanation, he rose with great dignity, crossed over and placed a reassuring hand on Dick’s head.

This ceremony over, the young Indian smiled, took his charge in tow again and they were off—this time to the far end of the village. Tepee after tepee they visited, going through the same monotonous performance. Then Dick received a shock. The last tepee they had entered did not contain the usual swarthy, dignified inmate. The atmosphere was wholly different here. Dick drew back with a startled cry, while a feeling of revulsion swept over him. Baptiste La Lond, a shivering white-faced wreck, sat with his back propped against a small pile of firewood and, close by, snoring as contentedly as if nothing had ever happened, sprawled the huge bulk of Bear Henderson.

“Ah, monsieur,” whimpered the abject, cowering wretch, “so you too haf suffered ze terrible misfortune. Veree soon we die. Zees barbarians haf no heart. Zey thirst for our veree blood. O monsieur, I am stricken. I feel ze so terrible, terrible position.”

“You look it!” Dick growled at him.

Dick felt that he should have been sorry for the unhappy Frenchman, but for various reasons he could not. Sympathy would have been wasted upon him. To a certain extent both Henderson and this cringing outlaw deserved the fate that most assuredly awaited them.

The chief’s son nudged his arm and they had turned away, when Baptiste again broke forth:

“Where ees ze rope?”

“What rope?”

“Why are you not bound, monsieur?”

“They took the rope off,” answered Dick noncommittally.

“An’ your two friends—are zey too without ze rope?”

“I haven’t seen either one of them since the attack. I think they are dead,” Dick choked.

“Et ees not so, monsieur. With my own eyes I see them both. Zey come along on ze same pack-train. Ze leetle fellow cry most ze way like beeg baby. Somewhere, I tell you, zey are here.”

With that startling information ringing in his ears, Dick was led outside. The young Indian scowlingly shook his head and pointed back at the tepee which sheltered the outlaws. Still scowling, he plucked two broad leaves from a weed growing at his feet, squatted on his haunches, placed the two leaves on the ground in front of him and, with a cry of rage, drove his long-bladed hunting knife through each in turn.

It was not difficult to comprehend that sort of sign language, and Dick signified that he understood. Well he knew that it was a mock murder—with Henderson and La Lond as the victims.

Watching his rescuer, suddenly Dick had an inspiration. Might it not be possible to learn the whereabouts of Sandy and Toma through the medium of this sign language. If Baptiste’s statement had been correct, his two chums were imprisoned somewhere in the village. If only he could make the young Indian understand.

With that purpose in view, Dick selected two smaller leaves growing on the same weed. Speaking sharply to his new friend in order to make sure that he had gained his strict attention, he stroked the leaves against his face, coddled them in his hands, brushed them against his lips, and in other ways attempted to show his love for them. That the leaves represented two persons, the Indian knew, of course; but Dick’s efforts apparently had overshot their mark. He had hit the wrong target The chief’s son evidently believed, judging from the sudden savage scowl on his face, that Dick was attempting to make known his friendship for the two outlaws.

Dick pointed to the outlaw’s tent and then at the two leaves he still held in the palm of his hand and shook his head vigorously. The scowl disappeared. With a small twig, he drew in the sand a crude likeness of two tepees. Within one of the tepees he placed the remnants of the leaves which had been mutilated by the Indian’s knife and in the other the two leaves he had himself selected, first being, very careful to wind long blades of grass around each of them. The blades of grass, he hoped, would carry to the Indian’s mind the suggestion he wished to convey—rope wound around the ankles and wrists of his chums.

There followed a few more explanatory gestures—and Dick gazed eagerly across to his benefactor. Had the young Indian grasped the message? The minutes seemed interminable as the two squatted there in the sand.

To Dick’s great disappointment, the chief’s son shook his head as if in doubt. Evidently he knew nothing of Sandy and Toma. However, he rose quickly to his feet and with a grunt to his eager companion hurried away through the trees, returning a few minutes afterward accompanied by three men. As he approached Dick he smiled and gesticulated excitedly.

“Come!” said one of the Indians.

Dick started in surprise.

“You speak English!” he shouted joyfully.

“Come!” solemnly repeated the Indian.

Motioning to Dick, the four struck off sharply to the right. They passed a few tepees, the last at that end of the village, and plunged straight on through a thicket of saskatoon, very much to Dick’s bewilderment. At the opposite side of the thicket a path, evidently used as a pack-trail, threaded its way through a dense growth of underbrush. Where were they taking him? A few hundred yards farther on, Dick stopped short, resolved not to take another step until he had satisfied himself that the party was not leading him astray.

“Where are we going?” he demanded of the Indian who had spoken the one word of English.

There ensued an interval of silence, in which the four Indians stared at Dick in mild disapproval. Then a wild chattering broke forth. They surrounded their dazed and discomfited protege, gesticulating almost savagely. Before their well-intended onslaught Dick shrank back in dismay.

Perceiving the uselessness of such tactics, the chief’s son approached the now thoroughly alarmed young man, smiling affably. He patted Dick’s arm reassuringly and pointed to the trail ahead.

“Come!” he said in a soothing voice, imitating the Indian who spoke English so fluently.

“Good! You come!” cried the fluent one, his face distorted in what probably was intended for a smile.

“All right,” grinned Dick. “I come.”

In high spirits they set out again. In less than twenty minutes they came upon a wide natural clearing, dotted here and there with the tepees of another Indian encampment. A few minutes later, Dick’s heart pounding in his throat, they entered the narrow opening of one of the tepees.

“Dick!” immediately shrieked a voice. “You! You! _You!_——”

With a cry that sounded like the screech of a calliope, Dick bounded forward and caught his chum in his arms.

“Sandy!” he almost blubbered. “Toma!—Everything’s all right! Gee!—I’ve found you—Don’t worry—Gosh! I’ve been nearly crazy, thinking, thinking——”

Tears were welling in Sandy’s eyes.

“Did you drop from the clouds?” he inquired brokenly. “Say, Dick, we’ve been through hell.”

“Don’t worry any more,” Dick comforted him. “We’re all right now. These Indians have come to release you. Just think of it, Sandy—we’re free. Free! Do you hear me, Sandy?”

“Yes, I hear you. But why——”

“The chief’s son—— We owe our lives to him.”

“Why chief’s son do that?” Toma demanded. “Mebbe they make you like fool.”

Dick turned quickly and grasped the guides drooping shoulder in a friendly grip.

“Listen, Toma. Look at that young Indian standing over there,” he pointed as he spoke. “Ever see him before?”

Toma blinked a number of times, then suddenly started.

“Sure!” he broke forth excitedly. “I know him. Young Indian fellow Baptiste strike ’em hard with revolver that day over at mine.”

“I’m beginning to see light,” Sandy cut in quickly. “We owe our lives to you, Dick. Because you knocked Baptiste down that day, after he’d struck the chief’s son, he—— he——”

“Is showing his gratitude,” Dick completed the sentence.

Then the three boys looked up expectantly. With a slow, measured tread, the subject of their discourse advanced with great solemnity and, bending over each of the prisoners in turn, cut the moose-hide thongs that bound them.

“Hurrah!” shouted Sandy. Then facing about, turning his head slowly, he looked up at Dick. “I was never happier—never quite so happy as I am right now,” he declared fervently.