o should be
bride was left in abeyance. He became, too, almost reconciled to his
dress, or want of dress--though, to be sure, a coat of paint and a
blanket cannot, at the best, be regarded as more than a passably
efficient hot-weather costume. With the easy adaptability of boyhood,
Andrew Kerr had become almost a veritable Indian.

Now, Peewash all this time had looked with covetous eye on his former
slave, and desired to repossess him. A big price would have to be paid,
no doubt; but Peewash was prepared to bid high, and the owner could not
withstand a temptation, backed, as it was, by that bait irresistible to
a Red Indian, "firewater." The boy again changed hands, and now for some
time served his original captor.

About this period the Tribes again "dug up the hatchet," and set out on
a big war-trail. Cruel and bloody was the fighting, many the prisoners
taken and brought into camp from time to time. On one occasion young
Kerr was compelled to stand, a horrified spectator, among the exulting
Redskins as with yells of gratified triumph, warriors and squaws, young
men and children, gloated fiercely over the brutal torture and lingering
death of eight English prisoners. It was a grim and grisly spectacle,
for no form of torment--from the nerve-wracking test of knife and
tomahawk, arrow or bullet, aimed with intent to graze the flesh and not
immediately to kill, to the ghastly ordeal of red-hot ramrods and
blazing pine-root splinters thrust into the flesh or under the nails
--was omitted by those bloodthirsty red devils. Many a sleepless hour,
many a night broken by awful dreams, must the sight have cost the boy.
But it determined him to attempt escape at all hazards whenever kind
fortune should put the chance in his way.

And fortune did help him ere long. There was a French trader named
Boileau who came much about the camp. To him Andrew very cautiously made
advances, and succeeded at last in enlisting the man's sympathies. Kerr
confided to the trader his desire to attempt escape, and, none too
willingly at the beginning, Boileau agreed to take the risk of helping.
It was no easy task to lull the suspicions and to evade the watchful eye
of the crafty Indians; but the boy had never, so far, shown any desire
to escape, and he was not now so everlastingly under supervision. In
very bad English on Boileau's part, and in worse French on that of Kerr,
a plan of escape was devised. Early in the day, Boileau, after his usual