"How did he know but what I might have picked him off?
What was to hinder me?
If he did n't know I was here, why, it ain't likely that he would loaf along the side of the ravine." By such a course of reasoning, he was not long in convincing himself that the way was open for his advance.

He hurried by on tiptoe, and drew a long breath of relief when certain that he had passed the dangerous spot.

But he was only a short distance beyond when his hair fairly arose on end, for he became certain that he heard the groan of a man among the boulders over his head.
"I wonder what the matter is there ?" he whispered, peering upward in the gloom and shadow.

"It may be some white man that the Indians have left for dead, and that still has some life in his body, or it may be an Indian himself who has met with an accident--helloa!"-- Just then it sounded again, and a cold shiver of terror crept over him from head to foot, as he was able to locate the precise point from which it came.

The frightful groaning did not stop as suddenly as before, but rose and sank, with a sound like the wail of some suffering human being.
As Fred stood trembling and listening, his shuddering fear collapsed; for the sound which had transfixed him with such dread, he now recognized as the whistling of the wind, which, slight in itself, was still manipulated in some peculiar fashion by a nook in the rocks overhead.
"That does sound odd enough to scare a person," he muttered, as he resumed his walk.