The Lost Trail

  CHAPTER XX

  "GOOD-BYE!"

  Deerfoot directed his course toward the elevation where he and hisfriends stood when they first caught sight of the smoke of thecamp-fire. It was an easy matter to determine, whether the Osageshad discovered the horse while in that section. If they had notdone so, the probabilities were against their finding him at all.

  An interesting question had already been answered by Deerfoot,respecting the degree of hostility of the Osage Indians. There wascomfort in the thought that they were not active and malignant intheir enmity. They were not likely to trail a white man for thesake of taking his life, as their fierce brethren across theMississippi loved to do, nor did they possess the courage of thewarlike Shawanoes, whose encounters with the early pioneers of theWest form the most thrilling episodes in its history.

  But, like the vagabond red men of to-day, the Osages were of thatcharacter that a white man would much prefer not to meet them in alonely place, unless help was present or within call. If theyshould come across the two boys, their treatment of them woulddepend very much on the mood in which they happened to be. Theywould be inclined to rob them of everything worth taking, and mightend the matter by shooting both or turning them adrift without gunsor ammunition.

  Had Deerfoot been alone, he would have given them no thought. Hehad visited their villages more than once, and though the questionsof several of their warriors showed that they regarded him withsuspicion, they offered no indignity, and made no objection to hisdeparture.

  Had the Osages found the wandering they would refuse to give him upon the demand of the owner. In that case, as in one alreadyrelated, he could be regained only by strategy, in which the boyswere sure to need the help of Deerfoot.

  But all this speculation speedily ended. An examination revealedthe fact that the trail of the steed and that of the warriorscrossed, but the latter was fully two hours older than the former,and from the point of intersection they diverged. Thus it wasproven that the colt had been grazing for a considerable time closeto the Indians without them suspecting it.

  The Osages had continued traveling in a southwesterly direction,while the stray horse had kept on in a course slightly to the northof west. There could be no doubt that the warriors were makingtheir way homeward, while the animal seemed guided by an instinctthat promised to place him in the possession of his owner, withoutany assistance from the son.

  The discovery was most gratifying to all parties, Deerfootexpressing his pleasure that Otto was not likely to suffer at thehands of his irate parent for the disaster which was unavoidable onhis part.

  "Good fortune awaits my brother," said he; "he may not meet any redmen on his way home, where Deerfoot hopes the horse will greet himwhen he arrives."

  "Did you see any Indians on this side the Mississippi when you wereriding him?" asked Jack.

  Otto shook his head, as he was sure that style of answer could notbe criticized by either of his companions.

  "The outlook is a good one indeed," said Jack, heartily; "and whatyou have done, Deerfoot, is more than we can ever repay. You neednot be, told that if it ever comes within our power to give youhelp, it will not be denied."

  To their surprise the young Shawanoe extended his hand to Otto.

  "Good-bye, brother."

  The lad shook it warmly, and said:

  "Ish you going not--I means, will you leave us?"

  "Deerfoot must go; good-bye, brother."

  The second farewell was addressed to Jack Carleton, who ferventlypressed the soft hand, an said with much feeling:

  "Sorry are we to part company, but you your own master. I hope weshall soon meet again!"

  "We shall," was all that the Shawanoe said as he released his handand moved off, vanishing almost instantly among the trees.

  The boys stood several minutes, silent and thoughtful, lookingtoward the point where the Shawanoe was last seen, as though theyexpected him to return; but the silence around them continued asprofound as at "creation's morn." They knew that when the youngwarrior took such a step, he was in earnest.

  He would have been glad to keep them company, but some good reasontook him in another direction.

  "We shall meet him again," said Jack Carleton, with a slight sigh ofregret, recalling the last words of Deerfoot; "from all that wastold me about him in Kentucky, he is such a friend to the whitesthat he was never away from their settlements for a very long time.I have been anxious to know him."

  "They used to dell von great shtories apout him," said Otto,speaking with great care.

  "And I never believed one half of them. The idea of a young Shawanoereading his Bible every day, and being able to write the prettiestkind of a band, was something that made us laugh, but every word ofit was true, as he proved to us."

  "Den vot pig dings be doos in de woods!"

  "I should say so. Just think of it, Otto! There we were among apile of logs, surrounded as you may say by Indian warriors, bent onhaving our scalps, and yet he delivered a letter to us, explainingthe plan he had formed, and then alone scared away the whole lot, sowe could out. When you get back home and tell parents this story,what will they say?"

  "Mine fader will say nodings, but he vill cut pig stick and bang meas bard as nefer vos lying."

  "And I can't wonder much at it," said Jack with a laugh, "but itwill be truth, nevertheless, and it is no more wonderful than manythings he has done."

  "Vy doesn't dey calls him Deerfoot--dot ish, why does dey?"

  "On account of his fleetness; he is the swiftest runner ever knownin Kentucky. A year or two ago, he was captured by the Wyandots,who hate him worse than poison. He pretended he was lame, which putthe idea in the head of his capture to have some fun with him. Theytook him out on a long clearing and placed him in front of theswiftest warriors, and then told him to run for his life. Well, heran."

  "Did they cotch him and kill him, or didn't he get away?"

  "Those Indians," said Jack, ignoring the absurdity of Otto'squestion, "saw such running as they never looked upon before.Deerfoot just scooted away from them, as though he had wings. Oneof the Hurons had treated him very bad and Deerfoot paid him."

  "How vosn't dot?"

  "He drove his tomahawk through his skull."

  "Yaw; I dinks he doesn't bodder Deerfoot not much more."

  "I never heard that he did, but you can't understand why the Indianshate him as they do. I've heard that Tecumseh offered a dozenhorses, and I don't know how much wampum and other presents, to thewarrior who would bring back his scalp. But I've no doubt he had tosend out a proclamation taking back the offer."

  "Vy vosn't dot?"

  "I've been told that the rule was when a Huron or Shawanoe went outto hunt for Deerfoot, that was the last heard of him. He never cameback, and you see that Deerfoot still wears his scalp."

  "Vere didn't them goes to vot didn't comes back?"

  "To their happy hunting-grounds. Sometimes, their bodies were foundmoldering in the woods. And sometimes no one ever knew where theyperished. Deerfoot is a Christian (and, Otto, made me feel ashamedof myself), but he isn't the kind to sit down and allow any one towalk off with his scalp. Tecumseh is a young chief, who's is ambitiousto make war upon the whites. He must have concluded that if he didn'tstop his warriors hunting Deerfoot there would be none left for him!I can't understand, Otto, how it was your father turned him away fromhis door, when he stopped there at night in a storm."

  "Ah, Jack, you doesn't know how mean mine fader ish," said theGerman with a grin though proud of his parent.

  "He couldn't have known that it was Deerfoot," said Jack,reflectively.

  "Dot wouldn't make no difference; he treat all Indians de same. Onedimes they stole a pig vot didn't pelongs to him and he whipped meas hard as nefer vos, and he hates all Indians for dot."

  "It is a great mistake," added Jack thoughtfully, "for you know howrevengeful they are, and one of these days some trumping redskinthat he has abused will steal up t
o his house and shoot him dead."

  "Dot is vot I tolds him," said Otto; "and he will be as sorry asdunderation ven it afift too late."

  "Well," added Jack, looking around him, "it isn't worth while tostand here, when we have such a long ways to travel, and there is nocertainty the colt hasn't changed his course and gone away from thesettlement instead of toward it."

  Otto agreed with his friend, and, picking up his damp blanket, hethrew it over his shoulder, and each with his gun in his hand,resumed the pursuit of the stray, which they hoped was at no greatdistance.

  The hoof-prints showed that the horse continued to take matters veryphilosophically. His fastest gait was a leisurely walk, and oftenhe stood still and nibbled the buds of the vegetation not yet fullydeveloped.

  It was gratifying to find that in spite of an occasional digression,his general course was as named. It is pleasant to discover thatthe missing wanderer is steadily making his ward, even though he isa long time in arriving at his destination.

  It was comparatively early in the afternoon when Deerfoot theShawanoe bade them good-bye, and for two hours the route underwentlittle change; but at time, Jack Carleton was forced to admit thatthe course they were following was not the one to take them to thesettlement.

  Shortly after the departure of their friend, they crossed the trailover which Otto had ridden some days before, and then the hoof-printstended more to the north, so that, in a general way, the boys tookthe direction of the Mississippi itself. It could not be expectedthat while keeping a considerable distance from water, would followits amazing tortuosity, probably surpasses that of any river on theglobe. Thus it came about that sometimes Jack and Otto foundthemselves close to the immense stream and then again they were along ways inland.

  "It seems to me," said Jack, when the afternoon was drawing to aclose, "that we ought be quite near the colt; we have gone steadilyforward, while he has often stopped, and as yet has not traveledfaster than a walk."

  "But he starts a long time pefore we starts," said Otto.

  "Not so very long. There's one thing quite certain: he doesn't carewhether he finds his way to the settlement or not, for he isn'ttrying to do so."

  "He changes agin, don't he?"

  "Likely enough, and he may turn still further off from the rightcourse. It is getting so late that we shall have hard work to reachhome with him to-morrow."

  "When we fluds him we gots on him and makes him go like he nefergoes mit pefore."

  "We won't be able to travel fast until we get him back to theregular path, where the trees and limbs won't interfere with us."

  "If Deerfoot vos mit us he tells us how close he be to us," saidOtto, alluding to the skill of the Shawanoe in interpreting the ageof a trail.

  "He would do so at a glance. Helloa!"

  Just then Jack, who was slightly in advance of his friend, caughtsight of a bundle similar that which the Shawanoe found severalhours before.

  Hurrying forward, it was seen to be the blanket of Jack Carleton,which, like the other, had come displaced and fallen from the backof the wandering horse. Like that, too, it was saturated withMississippi water, which, as far as could, the boys wrung from it.