"But as I told you, he is the soundest sleeper I ever traveled with." The Indians now filed away out of the valley as silently as they entered it, for, knowing the close vicinity of the other camp, they were aware how necessary it was to be cautious.
And now Addie Neidic stood alone, while the morning star rose higher and higher, gazing at what she supposed was the sleeping man on the knoll.
The moon had got so far around that she could see his hat, the rifle against the tree, and the outlines of his form, as she believed.
"I will move up and secure his rifle," she thought, after the band had been gone some time.

"He might wake; and in his first alarm use it foolishly." So she moved with a noiseless step within reach of the gun, and the next moment it was in her possession.

Then she looked down, to see if he showed signs of waking.

To her surprise, she saw no motions of a breathing form under the blanket.

A closer look told her that if a form had been beneath the blanket, or a head under that hat, it was gone.
And, feeling with her hand under the blanket, she, found it cold; no warm living form had been there for hours.
"He has been alarmed, seen us, and crept away--perhaps is hiding in terror in the brush," she muttered.
She did not even then realize that he might have fled away to alarm the other camp.