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Hazletine listened with an expression of amused contempt on his bearded face. "You'll git over that afore you've been here long. I think I know who he was. Tell me how he looked." Jack was able to give a good description of his visitor, and before it was finished the guide nodded his head several times. "It was him, Motoza, one of the worst scamps west of the Mississippi."
Once more Motoza had allowed an American youth to get the drop on him, for he could not mistake the meaning of that command, nor the deeper eloquence of the pose of Fred Greenwood with his rifle at a dead level. The Sioux must have despised himself for his forgetfulness. But he had already proven the readiness with which he accepted a situation, no matter how unwelcome.
Believing a meeting inevitable, the youth placed his hand on his revolver, the preferable weapon in the event of coming to close quarters. But at the last moment Motoza turned to the left and passed among the rocks within a couple of paces of the youth, who held his breath until he was gone.
Jack's dread was that Hazletine, despite his undoubted skill, would frighten Tozer and Motoza by his efforts to defeat their purpose, and drive them into slaying Fred and making off before they could be punished. But the cowman had his own views, and it was too late to dissuade him.
It was Fred who spoke: "Hank, there is one matter as to which I cannot feel certain; I want your opinion of it." "Wal, I'm listening." "After Motoza forced me into the cavern at the side of the canyon he went off and has not returned yet, unless he did so after I left. Now, why didn't he go back?" "Why should he go back?
"Poor Jack must be worried almost to death," he murmured, sitting on the stones and giving rein to his fancies; "he will know that something has gone wrong with me, but he can never know what it was. Hank will lay it to Motoza, for he has said there is nothing too wicked for him to do, but the cowman has no way of finding what has become of me, and he can't make Motoza tell him.
Fred did not try to make himself believe that the falling of this mass of stone was an accident. Motoza or one of his allies had been on the watch above for the appearance of the youth, and when the boulder had been adjusted as well as possible it was tumbled over into the canyon.
He slunk off, and was seen no more. It was Hank Hazletine, the cowman, who leaped over the head of Jack Dudley when he was crouching on the rock in the canyon, and it happened in this way: It has been intimated that when the veteran left the boy at the temporary camp on the mountain side his intention was to learn the whereabouts of Motoza, the Sioux, hoping thereby to gain knowledge of the missing Fred Greenwood.
I feel like urging Hank, when we next see him, to make a change of quarters." "Why?" "That we may find some section where we are not likely to meet Motoza again. I don't understand why so many Indians are off the reservation. There must be a number of them that are friends of Motoza, and they will try some other trick on us."
He was restrained by two good reasons. Motoza was likely to seize him before he was swept beyond reach, and if he did not he would inevitably drown. Accordingly, Fred kept at it until finally they reached the ledge up which Hank Hazletine climbed twenty-four hours later. By this time a suspicion of the partial truth had penetrated the mind of Fred.
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