cornful
contempt, he asked:

"What do you think of Motoza's love for you and Fred?"

"I admit that you were right and we were wrong about him; I feared for
Fred, not for myself, and you see he has not tried to harm _me_."

"That ain't 'cause he loves you like the brother he calls hisself, but
'cause he hates Fred more'n he does you. If he hadn't had such a good
chance to grab the other younker, he would have grabbed you."

"Then you have no doubt that Motoza is the cause of it all?"

"No more doubt than that you're a setting on that stone there."

"I can't understand it; Fred is not the one to let a single Indian make
him prisoner, when one is as well armed as the other."

"Who said there was only one of the imps?"

The abrupt question meant a good deal. It had already been proven that a
number of other Indians were in the vicinity; but Jack had not thought
of associating them with the vagrant Sioux in his hostility to the young
hunters, although there was scarcely a doubt that Motoza had had one
helper or more in his designs against Fred Greenwood. This put a new
face on the matter, and Hazletine discussed the question more freely.

"There must be a half-dozen varmints or so in the mountains; they've
sneaked off the reservation and are hunting here without permission from
the folks that have 'em in charge. It ain't likely they started out with
any other idee than to have a little frolic of their own, meaning to go
back when they was through; but, as I remarked afore, when an Injin sees
a good chance to raise the mischief with just as good a chance of not
being found out, he's pretty sartin to do it. Wal, things took such a
queer shape when you younkers and Motoza seen each other that all the
ugliness in him has come out, and that's what's urging him now."

"It seems to me, Hank, that if he meant to punish Fred for humiliating
him, the method was simple."

"How?"

"By shooting him from ambush; he could do it without being seen, and I
can think of no way by which the guilt could be brought home to him."

"You're off there. Motoza knows that you and me are in these parts, and
that we're the friends of the younker; what had took place afore, with
what I'd swear to, would hang Motoza, and he knows it."

This declaration was not quite clear to Jack, but it sounded as if the
guide was willing to so modify his testimony in court as to insure the
conviction of the Sioux in case he followed the plan named by the y