“Get up!”

It was Duff who spoke, and he accompanied the command with a volley of oaths.

In wonderfully quick time Duff went through John’s pockets and the pouch which hung at his belt, taking everything he found, which, fortunately, was nothing more than a hunting knife and pistol.

“Take his gun and push out fast, ahead, Dexter. I’ll follow close behind, and you, young fellow, keep just behind your good friend here, and just ahead of me, and attempt no monkey business, or I’ll blow your brains out! Now, march!”
243

With a quick glance around to get his bearings, John walked off as Dexter led the way. He noticed regretfully that it was now quite dark in the woods, and the wind was again blowing so hard that their tracks through the snow would be quickly obscured.

For hours, it seemed to John, the silent march continued. At first he knew just where he was, but as it became darker and wolves howled not only on one but on all sides, and the wind swirled and swept so in all directions that he could not keep his bearings, he lost all knowledge of his whereabouts except to know that he was in a very unpleasant predicament, to say the least, and he wished heartily that he was out of it.
244

It was almost midnight, as nearly as John could judge, when, after winding in and out for some time through dark ravines, whose rocky walls rose high above their heads, making the darkness so intense that they could scarcely see the snow at their feet, Duff and Dexter mounted to a rough ledge four or five feet above the level of the valley in which they were, and dragged their captive up after them. He knew at once, as he found a low, rocky roof above his head, that they were in the mouth of a cave of some sort.

“Make a light,” commanded Duff, and stepping forward he seized John’s arm, as if afraid the boy might attempt to escape.

Dexter, obedient to his chief’s order, knelt in the darkness and by much puffing and blowing kindled a small fire from a few live coals remaining of a blaze the two men evidently had left when starting out.

“Get something to eat,” was the next order of the captain, and Dexter slunk away to another part of the cave.
245

While he waited by Duff’s side John made as thorough an inspection of the cave as he could by the flickering firelight. It did not appear very deep though the roof was twice as high as a man, and its yawning mouth extended nearly its entire width of probably twenty feet. Still comparatively little snow had drifted in and the floor was dry and hard. In one corner not far from the fire was a pile of leaves on which some skins and blankets were spread, while hanging on the forks of a sapling cut off half way up and now leaning against the wall, were a frying pan and other cooking utensils.

“Kind of ghost-like around here,” the boy remarked, smiling grimly as the firelight cast spectral shadows in the deeper parts of the cavern and upon the rough walls. “Seems to me I can see the ghosts of Quilling and Black Eagle right now.”

“Dry up! Blast your noisy tongue, dry up!” growled Duff beneath his breath, while involuntarily he shuddered and glanced around.

“Oh, what a guilty conscience,” thought John, mentally resolving to make use of this discovery that his captor was afraid of ghosts, if the opportunity came to him.
246

Their meager supper of venison over, Dexter, at Duff’s command—it seemed that the former was obliged to do all the physical labor—brought stout thongs of twisted buckskin and John was speedily bound hand and foot, and then pushed and thrown upon the bed of leaves and skins in the corner. Duff and Dexter also lay down, one on either side of the prisoner.

It was daylight when John awoke, the bonds upon his wrists and ankles instantly, painfully reminding him of where he was and bringing to his mind the unhappy recollection of all that had happened. Neither Duff nor Dexter was on the bed beside him, and, rolling over, he looked around. There sat Dexter on the log by the fire.

“Hi, there!” called John.

“Jest don’t you say nothin’. I’m to knock yer blasted brains out if ye holler, er say a word. Them’s Duff’s own words. Lay still an’ don’t say nothin’ an’ I won’t do ye no harm, an’ I’ll git ye a bite to eat.”

So saying Dexter sliced off a few cuts of meat from a nearly consumed fore quarter of a deer and prepared it for the prisoner.
247

“It was too bad Quilling was killed the way he was,” said John, as he ate, wishing to appear friendly, for he believed Dexter was not at heart nearly so villainous as his companion.

“Bub, jest you shet up. Ye ain’t allowed to say nothin’. Them’s the orders.”

But after a pause of several minutes, Dexter added: “Duff didn’t say as I couldn’t talk none, though, an’ I kin say yes, ’twas too bad as Quilling got killed. But it was his own fault. When Duff goes to yer hut as an Injun, plannin’ to get what he was after, an’ left me an’ Quilling at the edge o’ the woods t’ help him if he needed it, or to draw you chaps out some way, an’ give him a better chance, if he didn’t come back by midnight, Quilling an’ me stood under a tree with low limbs where we wouldn’t be seen by anybody. Then Quilling got scared—allus was a blamed baby anyhow,—an’ he begun to chatter an’ talk ’bout how he wished he had stayed to home. ‘An’ I’m............