"The fellows must have made off, to carry the news of our coming to their friends.
However, it's too late to do anything now.

It's already getting dark, and they must have got a quarter of an hour's start.

We have taken quite enough out of the horses, and can do no more with them, if they have to travel tomorrow; but I would give a year's pay if this hadn't happened.
"Well, there's nothing to do for it but to light our fires, and camp." The knowledge that they had been seen, and that the news would be carried to those of whom they were in search, acted as a great damper on the spirits of the party; and the camp was much more quiet and subdued than it had been, on the previous evening.
"All is not quite lost," Reuben said when, two hours later, he found that Jim was still absent from the camp.

"I can only account for his stealing away from us, in that manner, by supposing that he must either have caught sight of the natives, or come upon their trail; and at once set off in pursuit.

I don't see what it could be, otherwise." "But if he saw them, why didn't he tell you, Whitney ?" Mr.Blount said.