"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 youth. The veteran would have considered it right, under the circumstances, to do such a thing. "Since the fear of our testimony restrained him, why did he not seek to remove _us_ in the same manner, when he has had more than one opportunity?" "And there you're off again. Motoza wouldn't have had any trouble in wiping out two young tenderfeet like you, but he'd likely run agin a snag when he tried it on _me_!" The hunter shut his lips and shook his head with eloquent earnestness.