e I have
described the same thing. It was a signal fire intended by the
Winnebagos for the eyes of a party of friends who were too far off to be
reached in any other way. Deerfoot had seen such telegraphy many a time
and oft, and more than once he had used it. He could interpret such a
signal when made by a Shawanoe, Wyandotte, Sauk or Fox, but he had never
learned the code in use by the Winnebago military authorities.

However, it was not possible that there was any very fine shade of
meaning in the various manipulations of the two warriors. Keen brained
as is the American Indian, he is unable to do a great many things with
which he is credited: one of these is to do more than telegraph the
simplest messages by means of fire, though it is beyond question that
important tidings has been flashed hundreds of miles in a single night,
from mountain top to mountain top, by means of the signal fires of the
Indians.

What disturbed Deerfoot was this proof that there was a second party of
Winnebagos in that section of the country. He had not dreamed of such a
thing, and it might well cause him alarm, that is, for the three men who
were so intent on gathering their furs comparatively a short distance
away.

Carefully screening himself from observation, the Shawanoe looked
intently in the direction of the gaze of the Winnebagos. He saw that
they were not peering at any other ridge, but at the broad low valley to
the north-west. They had not long to look when they detected a thin
bluish column of smoke creeping upward among the tree tops and
dissolving in the clear air above.

Deerfoot also saw it, and he knew that it was a reply to the first
signal. There was another party of Winnebagos in the neighborhood; they
would soon join Black Bear's party, and there was no time for delay.
Indeed, but for the discovery he had made, the Shawanoe would have felt
that he had tarried too long already.

It was not far now to the camp of the Hunters of the Ozark, and it was
perilous to wait to warn them. Every hour counted. Not only that, but,
as you can readily see, Fred Linden and Terry Clark were in still
greater danger.

CHAPTER XXVI

ON THE EDGE OF THE PRAIRIE.

The night was far advanced when Fred Linden and Terry Clark reached the
stream, where the former remarked that their progress was stopped. Of
course he meant that they could continue if they chose to make another
raft or they could wade, but they had journeyed so