e tramp toward St. Louis.
Deerfoot, can't you go with us?"

He shook his head, and said:

"Deerfoot is hunting for two friends who are lost; he must not sleep nor
tarry on the way."

"How is that?" asked Burt, while the others listened with interest. The
young Shawanoe told, in his characteristic manner, the story which is
already well known to the reader. While doing so he watched each
countenance closely, hoping (though he could give no reason for such
hope) to catch some sign of a shadowy knowledge of that for which he was
seeking, but he was disappointed.

"One thing is sartin," remarked Burt Hawkins, when the story was fully
told, "them boys ain't dead."

"I agree with you," said Kellogg, with an emphatic nod of the head, in
which even the surly Crumpet joined. Deerfoot was surprised at this
unanimity, and inquired of Hawkins his reason for his belief.

"'Cause it's agin common sense; when two young men go out in the woods
to hunt game, both of 'em ain't going to get killed: that isn't the
fashion now-a-days. One of 'em might be hurt, but if that was so, and
the other couldn't get away, the Injins would take him off and keep him.
More than likely the varmints carried away both, and if you make a good
hunt for three or four thousand miles around, you'll get track of 'em."

"I think I know a better plan than that," said Kellogg, and, as the
others looked inquiringly toward him, he said, "both of them chaps have
been took by Injins who'll keep them awhile. One of these days the boys
will find a chance to give 'em the slip, and they'll leave on some dark
night and strike for home."

"It isn't likely both 'll have a show to do that at the same time," said
Crumpet, speaking with more courtesy than he had yet shown, and
manifesting much interest in the matter.

"No; one will have to leave a good while before the other, and then the
one that is left will be watched that much sharper, but all he's got to
do is to bide his time."

"When one of my brothers comes through the woods to his home, the other
will come with him," said Deerfoot, confident as he was that neither
Jack Carleton nor Otto Relstaub would desert the other, when placed in
any kind of danger.

Deerfoot was confirmed in his theory of the disappearance of his young
friends, for it agreed with what he had formed after leaving the
settlement that morning. But, admitting it was the correct theory, the
vast difficulty of locating the boys still confro