give up
shelter for those open spaces which, dusky though they were, were yet
revealing.

"It's likely, in any event, that we'll be followed, isn't it?" he said.
"If the Sioux search the valley, and they will, they're sure to find our
traces. Then they'll come over the rim of the hills on our tracks."

"Well reasoned, Will," said the hunter. "You'll learn to be a great
scout and trailer, if you live long enough. That's just what they'll do,
and they'll hang on to our trail with a patience that a white man seldom
shows, because time means little to the Indian. As I said before, when
we're far out on the plains we must make an abrupt turn toward the
north, and lose ourselves among the ranges. For a long time to come the
mountains will be our best friends. I love mountains anyway, Will. They
mean shelter in a wild country. They mean trees, for which the eyes
often ache. They mean grass on the slopes, and cool running water. The
great plains are fine, and they lift you up, but you can have too much
of 'em."

They rode now into the open country and in its dusky moonlight Will
could not at first restrain the feeling that in reality it was as bright
as day. A few hundred yards and both gazed back at the circle of hills
enclosing the valley, hills and forest alike looking like a great black
blur upon the face of the earth. But from the depths of that circling
island came a long, piercing note, instinct with anger and menace.

"Now that was plain talk," said Boyd. "It said that they had found our
trail, that they knew we were white, that they wanted our scalps, and
that they meant to follow us until they got 'em."

"Which being the case," said Will defiantly, "we have to say to them in
reply, though our syllables are unuttered, that we're not afraid, that
they may follow, but they will not take us, that our scalps are the only
scalps we have and we like 'em, that we mean to keep 'em squarely on top
of our heads, where they belong, and, numerous and powerful though the
Sioux nation may be, and brave and skillful though its warriors are,
they won't be able to keep us from finding our mine."

"That's the talk, Will, my boy. It sounds like Red Cloud, the great
Ogalala, Mahpeyalute himself. Fling 'em your glove, as the knights did
in the old time, but while you're flinging it we'll have to do something
besides talking. We must act. Trailers like the Sioux can follow us even
in the night over the plains, and the more ground we