The men laughed, but together with Bill they began to beat the brush and the weeds for the lost raccoon.
“Little gray Meetcha will be hard to find,” commented Tatanka. “He may have gone back to the woods near the river. His kind does not love the prairie like Hoka, the badger, who digs the striped gophers out of their holes.”
After some more searching Bill called out:
“Oh, come here, Tim. Here’s your fool coon. He’s washing a frog in my well.”
By the time Tim arrived, Meetcha had not only washed but also eaten his frog.
“You little fool,” Tim cried, as he gently boxed Meetcha’s ears, “the Sioux will cut off your tail and boil you in the pot if you run away from us. Haven’t you heard that war has begun?”
Meetcha snarled and struck at Tim with his short fore-paws, but Tim placed his pet in front of him on the saddle and men and boys started slowly for the small lake.
However, before they entered the woods, they halted the horses in an isolated thicket and Tatanka alone crept slowly through the grass and tall weeds into the woods.
“Where is he?” asked Bill, when Tatanka had gone a few rods. “I can’t even see the grass move, except by the little puffs of wind.”
“Of course you can’t.” Barker laughed. “Tatanka would not be a good scout if he could not vanish in the tall grass.”
Black Buffalo was gone a long time and Bill and Tim began to think that he would not come back or that he had been killed. But the trapper only smiled and said: “You boys don’t know what patience is. A good scout or a good hunter must be able to wait a long time, sometimes a whole day.”
When Tatanka did return he came into the thicket from the other side and was standing before them without either of the boys having seen him approach.
“Where did he come from?” Tim asked, his big blue eyes showing his surprise, but the trapper only smiled and said, “He’s our scout, lads.”
The scout reported that he had gone carefully through the whole patch of timber, and that neither in the timber nor on the lake shore had he seen any fresh sign of Indians or horses. “But I did see fresh deer sign,” he concluded. “A buck lives in those woods, but I did not see him.”
Feeling sure now that they would not fall into an ambush, the four friends rode into the woods to find a suitable spot, where they might conceal themselves till nightfall.