CHAPTER 22
The Messenger
FROM early dawn Tom, the Indian, had been on the trail. Dusk was settling over the land as he paused on the brow of a hill and looked anxiously down into the valley below. His eyes were keenly alert, his ears attentive to the least sound, and he sniffed the air for the camp-fire scent. He was weary, and longed to rest. But he had an important mission to fulfil, so he could not stop until that was accomplished. He was old and unaccustomed to hard travelling. His trips of late had been to the hills surrounding The Gap for mountain sheep, grouse, and ptarmigan. Only a great incentive had induced him to undertake this venture. He had his doubts as to how he would be received by the Indians scattered over the hunting-grounds. They had acted in a strange and rebellious mood of late, so the hope of influencing them was not very encouraging. But the vision of a wronged girl and the wounded Gikhi animated his soul, and inspired him with an overmastering determination. If what had recently happened at The Gap would not open the eyes of the Indians and give them a change of heart, nothing else would. He felt that the time was opportune, and that he must make the most of it.
Leaving the brow of the hill he descended into the valley, and ere long had the satisfaction of seeing a
light among the trees not far ahead. That Indians
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