“I’ll be along directly,” Hawk answered. “I wanna check a few things first.” He waited until Conner was on his way back down before turning and going to the edge of the cliff where he had found the rope tied around the tree. He stepped back into the trees and sat down where he could watch the tree with the rope tied to it. After a little while, when the last sounds of the men moving down through the forest to the road faded away and all was quiet on the hilltop, he saw what he expected. At first, there was a slight movement in the pine straw covering the rope, then it was followed by the appearance of a gray, woolly head over the edge of the cliff. Hawk waited until the little man was all the way up and onto the top of the bluff before speaking. On a hunch, he spoke in the Blackfoot tongue. “Your home is quiet now.” The little man nicknamed Frog jerked upright, looking all around him, much like a squirrel when startled. “Have no fear,” Hawk said, “I am a friend.”

Then locating the source of the voice, the little man focused his gaze upon the man seated, Indian fashion, among the trees. “Hawk,” he said, also in the Blackfoot tongue.

“My name is Hawk,” Hawk said. “You are a white man?”

“I am Siksika,” he replied, claiming to be Blackfoot.

Hawk was not surprised. He had figured Frog to have possibly been captured by the Indians when he was a small boy. “These men who attacked these people, had they been here before?” He thought it possible that David Booth’s outlaw partners might have been looking for a good place to hide bodies, should it become a necessity. Frog nodded anxiously in response. “Did you see them when they left?” Again, Frog nodded rapidly. “Will you show me?” Hawk asked. With no hesitation, Frog started toward the path back down to the road. Hawk followed right behind him.