to get breakfast. The mosquitoes and gnats were very bad; they
hovered in clouds, lit upon his naked back and bit him severely. With
one hand he poked the fire, with the other he slapped and scratched,
while grunting angrily about the pests.

"Brother, I will make a smoke behind you," spoke the doctor, who had a
desperate idea. "Then we can sit between two smokes and be at peace."

"All right," Tutelu grunted.

There was a little stick near at hand. It was a dogwood stick, only
eighteen inches long and not thicker than two fingers--not much of a
weapon. But the doctor was desperate. He picked it up, rolled a coal
upon it, held the coal in place with a smaller stick, and walked around
behind Tutelu, as if to start another fire. He laid down the coal, and
drew long breath. It was now or perhaps never. Suddenly he turned,
and half rising struck with all his strength. The dog-wood fork fairly
bounced upon the Indian's head.

"Wagh!" gasped Tutelu. He had been knocked forward, so that he fell
with his two hands and almost with his face into his fire. Instantly
he was up, before the doctor might strike again. He ran howling, with
his head bloody. He had no stomach for another blow. His prisoner had
changed to a demon.

The doctor sprang for the rifle. He must kill, or else the alarm would
be spread. But he was so excited that in cocking the rifle he broke
the lock. Tutelu feared a bullet. As he still ran, howling, he dodged
and doubled like a rabbit, until he had disappeared in the timber and
his howls soon died away.

Now the doctor worked fast. He grabbed up Tutelu's powder-horn and
bullet-pouch, blanket and moccasins, and ran, too.

In about an hour he came to the open prairie. He did not dare to cross
it in the daytime, so he hid in the edge of it. That night he traveled
by the north star, gained the other side by morning, and kept on until
late in the afternoon.

He was no woodsman. He could not fix the gun, and finally threw it
away. He could not chew, but he knew the herbs and weeds that were
good to eat, and he sucked on these. He found plenty of green
gooseberries; they upset his stomach, and he relieved himself with wild
ginger. He ate three fledgling black-birds, from a nest; and he ate
the soft parts of a land tortoise, torn apart with his fingers and
sticks, because he had no knife.

After wandering twenty-one days he reached Fort McIntosh on the Ohio
below Pittsburgh.

Wha