immensity of nature, as
displayed on every hand, to feel specially impressed by the scene which
would have held any one else enthralled. It may be said they were "on
business," though it had very much the appearance of sport.

"Halloo! I expected it!" called out Jack Carleton, whose gaze abruptly
rested on a point due southwest, and more than a mile away.

His companion did not need the guidance of the outstretched arm and
index finger leveled toward the distant spot, where the smoke of a
camp-fire was seen climbing toward the blue sky. The scene on which the
boys looked was similar to that which met the eye of Ned Preston and
Deerfoot when they lay on the broad flat rock and gazed across at the
signal-fire in the distance.

The wooded country gradually sloped to the south and west from the
elevation whereon the young friends had halted, slowly rising and
undulating until the eye could follow the blue wavy outlines no further.
At the point already named, and in the lowest portion of the intervening
country, a camp-fire was burning. The smoke, as it filtered upward
through the branches of the trees, and gradually dissolved in the pure
air above, was seen with such distinctness that it caught the eye of
Jack the moment it was turned in that direction.

It was not a signal-fire, such as one is likely to detect when
journeying through an Indian country, but the vapor from the camp of
some body of men who were not making the slightest attempt to conceal
themselves, for it cannot be conceived that they had any reason for
doing so.

If the party were Indians, they surely had no necessity for stationing a
sentinel on the outskirts of their camp to watch for danger.

Jack and Otto looked in each other's faces and smiled; the natural
question had presented itself at the same moment. It was, "Can it be
that the horse we are seeking is with them?"

"The only way to find out is to go forward and see for ourselves," said
Jack, after they had discussed the question for several minutes.

"'Spose dot de horse is with them--what den?"

Jack shrugged his shoulders.

"Deerfoot used to say that he could never answer such a question until
he knew exactly how everything stood. Now, we can't be certain whether
they are Indians or white men, and I don't know as it makes much
difference one way or the other, for our own horse thieves over in
Kentucky were dreaded as much as were the Shawanoes. They were a good
deal meaner, too, for