thought, to die
in attempting escape.

As it chanced later, a French trader--these tribes were the allies of
the French--arrived in camp, and remained there some time. Moved to pity
by the boy's unhappy condition, this man, with some difficulty,
persuaded Peewash to sell the lad to him for goods to the value of L40.
Great was Kerr's exultation; once more he was free, free too without
having had to face the terrible ordeal of attempting to escape from
these murderous Indian devils. All would now be well, for assuredly he,
or his friends, would repay to the Frenchman the ransom money. The boy
felt as if his troubles were already over; in a day or two at longest he
would sleep again under the flag of his own land; perhaps even, at no
distant date, he might once more gaze on scenes for which throughout his
captivity his soul had hungered, see, once more, Cheviot lying blue in
the distance, the Eildons with their triple crown, hear the ripple of
the Border streams. What tales of adventure he would have to tell.

Alas! he counted without his hosts. The Chippeways when they heard of
the transaction would have none of it. The captive boy had been the
property of the tribe, they said, and they refused to part with him; he
must be given up by the Frenchman. And the latter had no choice but to
comply.

Black now were the nights, gloomy the days, for Andrew Kerr, the blacker
and the more gloomy for the false dawn that for brief space had cheered
him; unbearable was his burden, more hopeless and wretched than ever
before, a thousandfold, his captivity. It was as it might be with a man
dying of thirst if a cup of cold water were dashed from his lips and
spilt on the sandy desert at his feet. Who can blame the boy if only the
knowledge of what treatment he would avowedly receive from the young
Indians if he should play the squaw and weep, kept him from shedding
tears of misery and vexation.

A new master was now his, a chief of the Chippeways; a new squaw set him
hateful, degrading tasks, and ordered him about; the young men and the
squaws laughed him to scorn; life became more bitter than ever before.

Gradually, however, Kerr's new owners relaxed their severity of
treatment, and his lines grew less unpleasant. Time, indeed, made him
almost popular--embarrassingly popular--for there came a day when the
tribe more than hinted its desire that the Pale-face should wed one of
its most beauteous daughters. Happily, the question of wh