Fred was not aware of the departure of Zeke nor that he had followed the
first of the white men to leave the camp. As a consequence when he saw the
stranger rise and slowly walk from the place, he had not been disturbed by
any fear of mishaps. Indeed, he did not even look about the camp carefully
to ascertain whether or not the other man was still there. Apparently too
this man when he had gone had departed empty-handed.
For a brief time Fred hesitated, almost deciding to awaken his companions
and inform them of his discovery, but at last, convinced that such action
was unnecessary and still unaware that the guide also had gone, he once
more stretched himself upon the dry ground and soon was soundly sleeping.
He was aroused the following morning by Grant who was shaking him as he
shouted, "Wake up, Fred!"
"Is it time to get up?" yawned Fred sleepily.
"It's time for every one of us to be wide awake," declared Grant. "Do you
know what has become of Zeke and the two men that were here last night?"
"Have they gone? Aren't they here now?" demanded Fred at once thoroughly
awake.
"No, sir, there's not one of them here," replied Grant.
"That's strange," said Fred. "I waked up in the night and saw one of the
white men leaving the camp."
"Didn't you see the others?"
"No."
"Did the man take anything with him?"
"I didn't see that he did."
"Well, one of the packs is gone anyway."
"Then the other man must have taken it," said Fred positively. "I'm sure
the one I saw leaving didn't carry anything with him."
"He may have come back," suggested Grant.
"That's true," said Fred thoughtfully. "I hadn't thought of that. Thomas
Jefferson," he added as the young Navajo now approached the place where
the two Go Ahead Boys were standing, "what do you make of this?"
"All three gone," replied the Indian.
"We know that already," replied Fred sharply, "but we don't know where
they have gone nor why nor who. What time was it," he demanded of Grant,
"when you first found this out?"
"About ten minutes ago when I first waked up."
"I saw one of the men leaving," Fred explained, "but I haven't any idea
what time it was. It was in the night sometime."
"Did he go alone?" inquired the Indian.
"Yes," Fred answered.
"In which direction did he go?" asked the Navajo.
Fred pointed to his right and without a word the young Navajo instantly
ran to that side of the camp and began to inspect closely the footprints
of the men who had gone.
In a brief time he returned and said simply, "No two of the men went
together. The man with the scar went first. If the man you saw did not
have any pack then it was the short man that took it."
"How do you know they didn't go together?" inquired Grant.
"I can see their footprints. If they had gone together they would have
walked side by side or one would have been directly behind the other. That
is not the way it is."
"But how do you know that the scarred man went first?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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