sting to tell all about this memorable
tournament, but you have no more doubt of the result than did the
victor from the moment he consented to enter into it. Mul-tal-la and
the Shelton brothers, including Spink and Jiggers, impressed upon the
Shawanoe the necessity of his doing his best, no matter what the nature
of the struggle might be. He promised to follow their counsel, as he
did that of Simon Kenton at the foot race at Woodvale the year before.

Five contestants entered against Deerfoot. The distance was about two
hundred yards. Never before was the Shawanoe pitted against such fleet
runners, but he finished the struggle fifty feet in front of the
foremost. The spectators, as well as the defeated runners themselves,
were dazed, and could hardly credit their own senses.

Not less crushing were Deerfoot's victories in the running, the
standing and the high jump. Like all great athletes, his triumphs
seemed to be won without calling upon his reserve capacity, and
therefore with much less apparent effort than shown by his rivals. In
firing at a target, he left the few marksmen of the tribe hopelessly
out of sight. Then he borrowed Mul-tal-la's bow, and every arrow that
he launched went farther and truer than any other. Altogether it was a
great day for Deerfoot the Shawanoe.

CHAPTER XV.

THE SPIRIT CIRCLE.

Never in all their lives were the Shelton brothers prouder of Deerfoot
the Shawanoe than when they saw him utterly defeat the finest athletes
of the Blackfoot tribe. The youth had done his best, as he was urged to
do, and his triumph was too overwhelming for anyone to question it. He
had been pitted against the very flower of that powerful people, who at
that time numbered between three and four thousand souls. The pick of
the runners and marksmen had come from the other villages, and every
one was decisively vanquished.

The delight of Mul-tal-la and of Spink and Jiggers was hardly less than
that of the boys. Mul-tal-la _knew_ the Shawanoe would win, while the
other two Blackfeet merely believed it, for they had never been
intimately associated with the champion of champions, and only
remembered what Mul-tal-la told them he had witnessed.

Human nature is the same the world over, and among the defeated ones
was a feeling of envy and resentment toward the young warrior who
belonged to another tribe, and who, after coming many hundreds of
miles, had put them all to shame. This was to be expected, a