stockade station--the center and rallying point of the settlements in
that quarter of Kentucky. They had been indulging themselves in the
forlorn hope that their boy, by some strange chance, might possibly have
found his way to that place; but this vanished with the first look of
wondering-inquiry that greeted their coming. Though no tongue could give
them any tidings of the lost one, kind and sympathetic hearts were there
for comfort, with willing hands and swift feet for help. Among the
latter were several hunters, cunning in woodcraft, who could follow a
trail, whether of man or beast, the livelong day; and over ground where
nothing might be distinguished by the inexperienced eye but grass or
leaves, sand, pebbles or solid rock.

Forth on the humane errand they sped them, one and all, some to the
northward, some to the southward; many to the eastward, but none to the
westward. The little runaway's starting point had been in the East; he
might have strayed away toward the North or toward the South, but it
seemed hardly possible that he could have passed on by toward the West.
They little imagined how far the wayward young feet had followed the
setting sun!

All day long they beat the tangled wilds. Of savage beasts, traces, more
than enough, could they find, turn whither they might; and of savage
men, two or three recent trails, one of them leading directly across the
buffalo highway that traversed the forest between the settlements and
Whitney's distant cabin. Late in the afternoon the questers began
returning to the fort, dropping in, weary and disheartened, one after
one. Some had pushed the search to the very threshold of the deserted
home, and had observed how the boy's footprints, after tracing
themselves along the path down the hillside, suddenly vanished, there at
the spring, and never a sign anear the spot of living things besides,
which could suggest an explanation of the mystery. What manner of
disappearance might this be?

That morning, after having snatched a brief repose from the fatigues of
a day's chase and a night's journey, Jervis Whitney had started forth
for a few hours after the rest to renew the search, taking leave of
Elster at the fort gate. At sunset he returned, purposing that, if no
tidings had been gathered, to beat the forest toward the West until
dark. He found his wife where he had left her--where, indeed, she had
remained through all the weary, dreary intervening hours--waiting and
w