all played and hunted and
fished together, and soon it was hard to tell the white boys from the
Indian boys. But the four did not intend to be Indians any longer than
they had to. They wanted to go home. It was the kind of vacation they
had not figured upon spending--and yet it was fun, if only their folks
could know. They learned a lot that they would not have learned in
school. Still, they rather preferred school, after all; and home.

The spring passed; and the lively pleasant summer. Indian boys do not
work. They are free to loaf or hunt, and train for warriors. Only the
girls work, so as to make women who will work.

In the crisp fall all the men except the very old left on a grand hunt,
to bring back meat and prepare for winter. The old women and girls and
little children remained in the town with the old men. The four young
white Indians had not been taken, either. They had to stay. They were
thought not to be old enough, yet.

"I reckon this is our best chance to escape," said Buck Elk, when he
might.

Little Fat Bear nodded.

"We'll plan and watch sharp. If one goes, all'll have to go, though.
No lone trail."

"Of course. We won't desert each other."

"But we've got to wait for a clear field. It's a pesky long way home."

"That's so. Just the same, we can make it if we have a good start."

They told the other boys, and they all lay low, waiting and scheming.

"We're going fishing to-morrow," finally announced Buck Elk, to Fat
Bear. "Want to?" And he winked.

"Who!"

"All of us. Old White Eagle and Singing Bird are going with us, to
clean the fish. But that doesn't matter."

They were the old father and mother who lived in the same family with
Buck Elk.

"Time's getting awful short," Fat Bear mused. "But maybe we can try
something."

With wrinkled White Eagle and Singing Bird scuttling close behind, they
went fishing in the river below the village. They had not said it to
each other, but they hoped never to come back. They must make a break
for liberty soon. The warriors might return within a week. The forest
beckoned close at hand. And southward, far, far southward, their real
home called to them. They had been gone almost eight months, but it
felt like an age.

"To-night, huh?" murmured Buck Elk, as he and Little Fat Bear fished
together, and the two old Indians drowsed in the shade, or wove baskets
of reeds.

"How?"

"Light out from camp while they're aslee