“Joe,” said Dick earnestly, “I’ve hit on a plan.”
“Have ye, Dick? What is’t?”
“Come and I’ll let ye see,” answered Dick, quitting the tent, followed by his comrades and his faithful dog.
It may be as well to remark here that no restraint whatever had yet been put on the movements of our hunters as long as they kept to their legs, for it was well known that any attempt by men on foot to escape from mounted Indians on the plains would be hopeless. Moreover, the savages thought that as long as there was a prospect of their being allowed to depart peaceably with their goods, they would not be so mad as to fly from the camp, and, by so doing, risk their lives and declare war with their entertainers. They had therefore been permitted to wander unchecked, as yet, far beyond the outskirts of the camp, and amuse themselves in paddling about the lake in the small Indian canoes and shooting wild-fowl.
Dick now led the way through the labyrinths of tents in the direction of the lake, and they talked and laughed loudly, and whistled to Crusoe as they went, in order to prevent their purpose being suspected. For the purpose of further disarming suspicion, they went without their rifles. Dick explained his plan by the way, and it was at once warmly approved of by his comrades.
On reaching the lake they launched a small canoe, into which Crusoe was ordered to jump; then, embarking they paddled swiftly to the opposite shore, singing a canoe song as they dipped their paddles in the moonlit waters of the lake. Arrived at the other side, they hauled the canoe up and hurried through the belt of wood and between the lake and the prairie. Here they paused.
“Is that the bluff, Joe?”
“No, Dick; that’s too near. T’other one’ll be best—far away to the right. It’s a little one, and there’s others near it. The sharp eyes o’ the Redskins won’t be so likely to be prowlin’ there.”
“Come on, then; but we’ll have to take down by the lake first.”
In a few minutes the hunters were threading their way through the outskirts of the wood at a rapid trot, in the opposite direction from the bluff, or wooded knoll, which they wished to reach. This they did lest prying eyes should have followed them. In a quarter of an hour they turned at right angles to their tracks, and struck straight
