Henri; Joe was not quite sure about it, and Dick hoped for the best.
In the course of half an hour the last of the Camanchees was seen to hover on the horizon like a speck against the sky, and then to disappear.
Immediately the three hunters vaulted on their steeds and resumed their journey; but before that evening closed they had sad evidence of the savage nature of the band from which they had escaped. On passing the brow of a slight eminence, Dick, who rode first, observed that Crusoe snuffed the breeze in an anxious, inquiring manner.
“What is’t, pup?” said Dick, drawing up, for he knew that his faithful dog never gave a false alarm.
Crusoe replied by a short, uncertain bark, and then bounding forward, disappeared behind a little wooded knoll. In another moment a long, dismal howl floated over the plains. There was a mystery about the dog’s conduct which, coupled with his melancholy cry, struck the travellers with a superstitious feeling of dread, as they sat looking at each other in surprise.
“Come, let’s clear it up,” cried Joe Blunt, shaking the reins of his steed, and galloping forward. A few strides brought them to the other side of the knoll, where, scattered upon the torn and bloody turf, they discovered the scalped and mangled remains of about twenty or thirty human beings. Their skulls had been cleft by the tomahawk and their breasts pierced by the scalping-knife, and from the position in which many of them lay it was evident they had been slain while asleep.
Joe’s brow flushed and his lips became tightly compressed as he muttered between his teeth, “Their skins are white.”
A short examination sufficed to show that the men who had thus been barbarously murdered while they slept had been a band of trappers or hunters, but what their errand, or whence they came, they could not discover.
Everything of value had been carried off, and all the scalps had been taken. Most of the bodies, although much mutilated, lay in a posture that led our hunters to believe they had been killed while asleep; but one or two were cut almost to pieces, and from the blood-bespattered and trampled sward around, it seemed as if they had struggled long and fiercely for life. Whether or not any of the savages had been slain, it was impossible to tell; for if
