"He must have gotten some of that information from the Blackfoot prisoner the Mandans have in their strong lodge?" suggested Roger, quickly. "I believe he did," Dick told him. "I happen to know that both the captains and an interpreter spent many hours with the Blackfoot. And I also heard that they had promised to take the man back to his people with them in the spring; for they were giving the Mandans some presents to coax them to turn him over to them." "Oh! just to think, Dick, what it will mean to us, if we are with them when they first set eyes on the big water! Our parents came from the far East, where they knew the Atlantic Ocean; and, if we could only see the other, what a feather it would be in our caps when we got back home." Dick had accomplished his purpose, for his cousin showed his old-time enthusiasm again. So they continued to converse as they followed Mayhew, who strode along in advance, constantly on the alert for some new and startling sight, and not at all pleased with his surroundings. It was after noon had come and gone that he uttered a cry that the boys understood as a command to halt. Each clutched his gun in the manner of those who know the value of being ready. "Look away off yonder, up on the low ridge!" said the guide, eagerly. "Moving figures, and of men at that!" ejaculated Roger. "Indians, I take it," said Dick; "for I can see the feathers in their hair, and the sun seems to glisten from their painted bodies. They must be on the warpath, to have put the paint on, and the feathers, too." "But look, Dick, there is one of them who wears clothes like a white trapper or borderman!" declared the excited Roger. "Do you see what I mean, Dick?" "Yes, it certainly looks that way," answered the other boy, shading his eyes with his hand in order to see better. "It _is_ a white man, too, for he is wearing some kind of fur cap, and his hunting shirt is fringed like our own. There, he turned his face this way then, and he is no Indian, I am as certain as that my name is Dick Armstrong!" CHAPTER XIX A SUDDEN PERIL "NOW they have gone!" said Roger, as the figures, outlined against the sky, vanished behind some outcropping rock. "Yes, and they seemed to be starting down the side of the ridge toward us, as near as I could see," Dick declared, nor did the guide dispute the assertion. "Could that have been our friend Jasper Williams?" demanded Roger, voicing the vague hope that was pounding at his own heart door. "He was too far away for us to make sure, one way or another," admitted Dick. "But he seemed to be of about the same build; and, Dick, you could see nothing to prove that it was any one else, could you?" "No, only that he was in the company of Indians," and Dick shook his head in a way that spoke of considerable doubt.