eside him.

"You have found the trail," he laughed, perceiving the sunken track made
by cart wheels.

"Yes, but we must go fast to catch the thief," answered Hawk Eye. "We
must gain a point of vantage on the bank ahead of him. Once there, we
can lay plans to recover our stolen canoes."

[Illustration: {Deer with antlers.}]

CHAPTER XIII

THE BOYS ARE TAKEN PRISONERS

The sun set and it set again. Raven Wing and Hawk Eye pushed on across
the prairie toward the Minnesota River. They had left the trail and were
veering toward the north.

"It would not be wise to make the great ford called by the white men
Sioux," Hawk Eye had said. "We must come at a fair distance from there
down the river to a point where the banks are high and the timber
heavy."

"We will continue to journey through the night until the river is in
sight," answered Raven Wing.

Hawk Eye grunted in assent. Once only did they pause for water at a
spring in the midst of a clump of cottonwood trees.

As the sun rose they neared the river and soon after they were camping
not far from a bluff, eating their breakfast beside a small fire, which
sent so thin a column of smoke into the air that it was almost
dissipated before it reached the treetops.

When the meal was over, Raven Wing said:

"I will take Ohitika and keep watch over the river while you get some
sleep." Armed with his bow and arrows, he strode off toward the brow of
the bluff.

Hawk Eye loaded his gun and placed it against a tree, together with
powder horn and bullet pouch. Then, throwing himself at full length on
the green moss beneath the tree, he fell into a sound sleep.

Scarcely a quarter of an hour had passed when he was startled by the
report of a gun, which was followed by a war cry from Raven Wing and a
series of war whoops. At the same instant, and before he could attempt
to rise, his legs and arms were pinioned to the ground by two Indians.
For a minute Hawk Eye was paralyzed. Then the terrible reality of his
position, the cry of warning from Raven Wing, and the sight of the thong
with which his captors were about to bind him, brought him to his
senses. With a display of strength that surprised his captors, he hurled
them right and left. As one of them struggled to his feet, he received a
blow from Hawk Eye's tomahawk that felled him; the other, fearing for
his life, dodged behind a tree.

As Hawk Eye glanced quickly around in search of his gun which no longer