The Lost Trail

  CHAPTER XIX

  THE SMOKE OF A CAMPFIRE

  Deerfoot identified the object before reaching it. His friendsfollowed him doubtingly, and while a rod to the rear, saw him gatherit up and hold it aloft.

  "It is your blanket," said Jack Carleton to his companion.

  "Dot ish what it be."

  It was easy to understand why the piece of coarse cloth lay on theground. Instead of rolling it up with the smaller one belonging toJack Carleton, Otto had made a separate bundle and strapped itbehind the other effects on the back of the horse. The latter inmoving among the trees had displaced it.

  It was saturated with water, which dripped from the folds whenraised from the ground. Jack and Otto twisted it between them untilall the moisture it was possible to wring out left it in a dozentiny rills. "Deerfoot," said the German, wheeling about, "dot ishde blanket vot--vot I don't--vot I put on your shoulders ven itrained."

  The Shawanoe bowed his head, smiled and said:

  "Deerfoot knows his brother speaks truth."

  "I gives him to you--be ish yours."

  The Indian made no move to take it, and Jack added:

  "We shall soon find the colt and with him my blanket and the otherarticles he has with him. We do not need this; you have none, andyou have many miles to traverse before you reach your home; we shallbe glad if you will take it from us."

  Deerfoot partly raised his hand to accept the gift, but stepped backwith a shake of his head.

  "When my brother goes to the cabin of his father, and, he asks himfor the blanket, what will he say?"

  "I vill tells him dot I gives him mit you."

  "Then the father of my brother will strike him."

  "I dinks dot ish so," said Otto with a grin and shrug of hisshoulders, "but I be glad to take a flogging for him dot does somuch for me--don't it?"

  The youth compressed his thin lips and made a single shake of hishead, so positive in its character that nothing more was needed.

  "But," added Jack Carleton, convinced from the hesitancy shown atfirst by Deerfoot, that he really wished the blanket, "if you are sodesirous of saving Otto from a flogging, it can be easily done. Whenwe take back the colt and Mr. Relstaub asks for the blanket, we cantell him that an Indian took it before we found the horse. Thatwill be the truth."

  Deerfoot looked straight in the face of the young Kentuckian, andhis lips parted as if on the point of speaking, but he refrained,and with his shadowy smile, again shook his head. The gesture saidas plainly as the words could have done:

  "What you propose is as much a falsehood as anything can be."

  "But I will give Otto my blanket," persisted Jack Carleton, determinedto overcome the scruples of the remarkable Indian, "that will makethings right."

  "Where is my brother's blanket?" asked Deerfoot with a gravecountenance.

  "I shall soon find it: the horse can't be far off."

  "Deerfoot will wait till my brother finds it."

  "Well! well", said Jack, with a wondering sigh, "you are thestrangest person I ever saw. It isn't worth while to argue anyquestion with you. So we'll let it pass."

  Such seemed to be the wish of Deerfoot, for, with his silent step,he moved along the elevated ground, until he arrived at a spot wherethe trees were so few and stunted that an extended view was obtained.There the three halted side by side, and spent several minutes gazingover the surrounding country.

  Looking toward Kentucky, the majestic Mississippi was in plain sightas it swept southward, while beyond stretched the undulating forest,until it met the dim horizon in the distance. Far to the southwardwas seen the smoke of a campfire. It was unusually murky, and, asit ascended in a wavy line through the clear atmosphere, it lookedas if the soiled finger of some great ogre had been drawn againstthe clear blue sky.

  But it was a sight which every one of the party had seen before, andit excited little interest. It was no concern of theirs what tookplace in Kentucky, and Jack and Otto turned to survey the "promisedland," which opened out to the westward.

  Woods, patches of natural clearing, hills and misty mountains manymiles away: these were the general features of the immense areawhich expanded before their sight. Ordinarily there was nothingamong these of special account, but the eye of Deerfoot, which neverseemed to lose anything, detected almost instantly a "sign" thatsignified a great deal to him and his companions.

  In a depression, no more than a furlong distant, could be observedthe faintest possible tinge of smoke, slowly ascending from a massof dense forest. It was so faint, in fact, that neither Jack norOtto noticed it, until Deerfoot pointed his finger in thatdirection, and said "The camp of red men!"

  The vapor was of a light blue, just above the tree-top's, and itrose only a few feet more, when it dissolved in the clear atmosphere.But it showed that a camp-fire was burning beneath, though it mayhave been kindled many hours before, and those who started itpossibly were miles away in the depths of the forest.

  "Suppose they are Shawanoes or Miamis?" remarked Jack.

  "They are not Shawanoes," said Deerfoot quietly.

  "Miamis then?"

  "Deerfoot thinks they are not Miamis, but he cannot be sure till hesees the camp."

  And without further remark, he went down the slope with a rapidstep, which, it is hardly necessary to say, gave out no noise atall. Jack concluded he could not feel much misgiving or he wouldnot have allowed him and Otto to follow so close on his heels. Butthey were some distance off, when he turned about and motioned themto halt.

  "Let my brothers wait for Deerfoot," he said softly.

  Knowing he would be obeyed without question, Deerfoot continued hisadvance, speedily disappearing from sight among the trees andundergrowth, while the others did as he requested.

  The discovery of the camp-fire not only caused some misgivings aboutthe personal safety of the little company, but it suggested that themissing horse was lost beyond recovery. Horse-flesh is the most"sensitive capital" on the frontier, and he who pilfers it runs moredanger of lynching than does the man who takes the life of a fellowbeing. To the Indian, the noble animal is as indispensable as tothe settler, and, if the party who had made the halt in thatneighborhood learned that an unusually fine steed was wandering nearthem, they would lose no time in making him captive.

  But from the moment our young friends left their elevated position,they followed a different route from that of the colt.

  "Mine gracious!" whispered the disturbed German lad: "I dinks dot ifthey don't got de golt then the golt don't got dem, and fader hewon't be as bleased as nefer vos."

  "There isn't any hurry, Otto, in putting your words together, and itis a good time for you to try to string them so they will make alittle sense."

  "Yaw; I vill tries."

  "Sh! There comes some one!"

  It was Deerfoot, who appeared a moment later, and beckoned hisfriends to join him. His manner, while not careless, was somanifestly free from solicitude, that Jack knew there was no groundfor alarm. He and Otto overtook the Shawanoe at the moment hestepped into the open space where a camp-fire had been burning sometime before.

  In fact it was still burning, else the smoke would not have caughtthe eye of the Indian youth; but it must have been smoldering forhours, judging from the thinness of the vapor, and the fact thatlittle more than a pile of ashes and decaying embers met the sight.

  There is naught to be said in the way of description. The fire,when kindled, had been a large one, and all the burning sticks werein one pile instead of two or three, as is often the case. Thecharred ends protruded irregularly from the white, feathery ashes,and one solitary brand, smothered almost from sight, sent up thefaint bluish vapor which, creeping through the foliage overhead,told the vigilant Shawanoe where to look for the camp of hisenemies.

  "How long have they been gone?" asked Jack, gazing carefully aroundand assuring himself that no strangers were near.

  "They went away when the sun first came up from the woods; manyho
urs have passed since they left."

  "Which course did they take?"

  Deerfoot pointed toward the south.

  "Were you right in saying they were not Shawanoes?"

  "They did not belong to my tribe."

  "Ah, then they were Miamis. I made up my mind to that."

  "My brother is wrong," replied Deerfoot, with a flitting smile;"they were Osage Indians."

  "How don't you know dot?"

  "My other brother is wrong: Deerfoot said not he did not know it; hedoes know they were Osages."

  Jack Carleton poked Otto in the side.

  "Even Deerfoot corrects your language."

  "All rights," said Otto, bristling up; "I'ven I don't haf a mind to,I talks mebbe better nor you does; but ven I does, den I don't; so Ishets up my mouth up, mebbe--don't it?"

  Deerfoot stepped to a fallen tree, which no doubt had served as aseat for most of the party, and picked up a strip of blanket, hardlya foot long and no more than an inch wide. It was not onlycunningly woven, but showed brilliant blue and yellow colors on abackground of black.

  "This was the blanket of an Osage warrior," said the Shawanoe,flinging it to Otto, who turned it over several times in silence,Jack looking over his shoulder.

  "I suppose he caught sight of that before we came up and learned thetruth; don't you think so?"

  "I don't dink nodings more," replied Otto, still pouting from theoffence given a few minutes previous.

  Bending over, Deerfoot carefully drew some leaves aside and revealedthe upper bone of a deer's foreleg, to which a good quantity ofpartially broiled venison was clinging. Judging from this discoveryand the number of bones scattered about, the Osages had more foodthan they needed.

  "We--that is, you and I, Deerfoot--are hungry. Is the meat in shapefor us to eat?"

  The Shawanoe had satisfied himself by examination that it was readyfor the palate, and he so expressed himself.

  "That is good; there is just enough to make as a good dinner. Ottodoesn't look as though he cared about any, and he can wait tilltomorrow."

  This statement of the situation quickly loosened the tongue of thesturdy German, whose hunger had reached a ravenous point.

  "I speaks mit myself luf ven I vishes," he hastened to say; "I vosas hungry as nefer could be, and what for you dinks I ain't, eh?"

  Jack laughed, and, sitting on the same tree which had served the redmen, all three used their keen hunting-knives upon the rarely-cookedmeat. They could have enjoyed much more had it been at theirdisposal; but as it was, they made a substantial meal, receivingenough nourishment to last them till the morrow.

  "How many warriors were here?" asked Jack of their leader.

  "Seven," was the prompt reply.

  "What brought them to this place?"

  "They were hunting; an Osage village is not many miles off yonder,"said Deerfoot, pointing to the southwest; "and they have gone there.They spent the night here."

  "Did they get my horse?" asked Otto, whose face was aglow with goodnature and grease.

  "My brother shall soon know."