for them to see it if it had
been there; but it was not. Neither was there any dead wolf to be found
in the vicinity. It was the same along the whole line, where they had
scattered their bait. They could neither discover meat nor wolves.

"Hello!" exclaimed "Billy" Brackett softly, as they were about to turn
back, "I believe the wolves are cooking their meat;" and with that he
pointed to a thin column of blue smoke rising through the trees at some
distance farther down the stream.

"Perhaps they are Indians," suggested Glen.

"Perhaps they are. Let's go and find out. We can take a look at them
without being seen. Besides, the Indians hereabout are peaceful now."

So they crept cautiously towards the smoke, until at length they were
lying flat on the ground, on the edge of a low bank, with their heads
hidden in tufts of grass, peering into a small encampment of Indians
just below them. They had hardly gained this position when Glen,
uttering a cry of horror, sprang down the bank, rushed in among the
Indians, and, snatching a piece of meat from the hands of one of them,
who was raising it to his mouth, flung it so far away that it was
snapped up and swallowed by a lean, wolfish-looking cur, that had not
dared venture near the fire.

At Glen's sudden appearance the Indian women and children ran screaming
into the bushes, while the men, springing to their feet, surrounded him
with angry exclamations and significant handlings of their knives. They
received a second surprise, and fell back a little as "Billy" Brackett,
who had not at first understood Glen's precipitate action, came rushing
down the bank after him, shouting, "Stand back, you villains! If you lay
a hand on him, I'll blow the tops of all your heads off!"

At the same time Glen was making all the faces expressive of extreme
disgust that he could think of, and saying, as he pointed to a pile of
meat lying in a gunny-sack beside the fire:

"_Carne no bueno! Muy mal! No bueno por hombre!_" which was the best
Spanish he knew for, "The meat is not good. It is very bad, and not at
all good for a man to eat."

But the Indians could not understand. The meat might not be good enough
for white men, who were so very particular, but it was good enough for
them. The white men had thrown it away and they had found it. They meant
to eat it, too, for they were very hungry. Now, if these uninvited
guests to their camp would not clear out and let them eat their
breakfast