At the same time they did not seem to be gaining to any appreciable extent on the explorers who were pushing on ahead; which fact gave Roger occasional fits of the blues, so that his companion was compelled to again show him that sooner or later they were bound to attain their end. For Captain Lewis had, before starting, announced that he expected to spend the winter somewhere short of the great mountain chain, which, it was believed, ran north and south somewhere in the distant country. CHAPTER XVI THE PERILS OF THE WILDERNESS "I WONDER if he saw us?" Roger was saying, some days after the buffalo stampede. The boys were thinking of halting for the night, and the western sky had taken on all the wonderful rosy tints at which even these frontier boys would gaze with something akin to awe. "I hope not," his companion returned, with a troubled look on his sunburned face; "because that might mean new perils before morning. Up to now we've been so lucky about escaping any sort of fight with the wandering Indians that I keep hoping we may get through, and join the expedition, without any annoyance." "But it _was_ a redskin, all right, Dick; both of us saw him plain enough to be very sure of that," Roger went on. "Oh! yes, I grant that," was Dick's answer; "but he wasn't in evidence on that little rise more than a few minutes. We kept our horses standing still all the time, in the hope that he might not notice us. He shaded his eyes with his hand, because he was looking into the west, and that light must have partly blinded him. I only hope it was strong enough to make him miss seeing us here." "Are we going on now?" queried the other, impatiently. "That's the only thing left to us, Roger. By sticking close to the foot of the rise, where there are some trees to give us shelter, we may escape being seen. But no galloping for us now; just let the horses walk until the dusk comes down on us. Then we'll make camp, somehow." "How lucky that I cooked enough of that meat at noon to last another meal. That was a time when I had my head about me, eh, Dick?" the other asked. "It looks that way, because we must light no fire if there's a hunting party of hostile Indians around here," Dick decided. They let the tired animals walk, keeping to the edge of the little hill beyond which, though at some little distance, lay the river. Roger, grown very suspicious now, turned in his saddle many times to glance in all directions. He thought more than once that he saw a crouching Indian behind some tree or bush, and his gun almost involuntarily started to leap to his shoulder. But in every case it turned out to be some deceptive shadow, and Roger was the first one to laugh at his own silly fears. Gradually the glorious red tints died out of the western heavens; and with their passing came the troops of skirmishing shadows that told of the night.