t it
can't compare with yours. I never knew of the Indians being fooled in
that manner; but show me where you have spent the last day or two."

"It ishn't as fine as your cabin dot is home in Martinsville, but it ish
de best dot I can find."

"You're mighty lucky to find anything," was the remark of Jack Carleton,
following his young friend toward the rocky ridge which had attracted
the notice of the Shawanoe some time before.

"I wonder whether Deerfoot will find it?" said he, musing over the
strange experience of his friend; "I suppose you have left plenty of
footprints which he is likely to see and which will guide him to the
right spot."

"I vos going to leave dis place to-nights or to-morrow mornings," said
Otto, quite proud of the part he was acting as guide of his old friend,
"but dinks dot I stays till I feels like being better."

Before Otto Relstaub could finish his remark, the crack of two rifles
cut short his words. At the same moment the whistling bullets and the
war whoops left no doubt of the explanation. Several Pawnees had been
prowling along their trail, when the sight of the boys moving away led
them to believe they had taken the alarm and were trying to escape.
Firing hastily, they broke into a run, with less than a hundred yards
separating pursuer and pursued.

"Fly, Otto!" called his companion; "if you can run, now is the time;
they're on our heels!"

As the German lad knew the right course, he was obliged to take the
lead, while Jack Carleton was behind him. The latter was much the
fleeter of foot, and it made him desperate to observe what seemed the
sluggish movements of his guide.

"Hurry!" he added, pushing him forward; "they will be on us in a minute
and then it's all up!"

"Yaw; I ish doing petter as nefer I couldn't does," replied Otto, who in
his excitement dropped back into his crooked words and sentences.

"You ain't half trying, I've seen you do twice as well."

"Yaw; but I dinks--"

The catastrophe came. Like the immortal John Smith, Otto was so busy
with his eyes that he had no opportunity to watch where his feet led
him. He sprawled forward on his hands and knees, and Jack Carleton
narrowly missed going headlong over him. The situation was too critical
to laugh, and Otto, thoroughly scared, was up again in an instant,
plunging forward with unabated ardor.

The Pawnees lost no time, and the peril was of the most imminent nature.
But having regained his feet, Otto dashe