Page:Hugh Pendexter--Kings of the Missouri.djvu/148

 his right leg sideways a bit. Maybe he didn't, but that's the way it looked."

"Good! You will make a mountain man yet—if you live. It all came to me a few minutes ago. I saw it and did not think about it till now. Now something inside of my head gave me a jerk and said for me to remember how he swung his leg. There could be no other."

"Meaning the hunter?" puzzled Lander.

"Pinaud, the hunter. The man who murdered Blair, and who would have been hung if the A. F. C. had not been trading whisky to the Indians. He's as deadly as a rattlesnake, a killer by nature. He is very worthy of one's best attention. It is to be regretted we must take the mules along."

Lander found his appetite diminishing. Pinaud, the hunter, was a vastly different proposition from Tilton and his blundering roughs. Lander suggested they stand watch but Papa shook his head, reminding that even a Pinaud could not follow a trail through the darkness.

"Then he must have sleep. In the morning he will seek us. The boat can not wait for him to hunt us and the boat must have fresh meat. He will try to add us to his bag as he goes along."