te toward Martinsville. Had any of those Shawanoes pushed the pursuit
still further? Had they lingered near the settlement, awaiting just such
an opportunity as was given by Jack and Otto when they went off on their
hunt?

This was the phase of the question which for a long time tortured
Deerfoot. He felt that it was improbable that danger existed in that
shape. The Shawanoes had no special cause for enmity against the boys.
If they should venture into Louisiana to revenge themselves upon any
one, it would be upon Deerfoot. Nothing was more certain than that he
had not been molested by any of his old enemies, for a good many days
previously, nor had they been anywhere near him during that period.

But the cunning Indian, like his shrewd white brother, may do the very
thing least expected. Might they not capture and make off with the boys,
for the very purpose of leading Deerfoot on a long pursuit, in which the
advantage would be wholly against him?

But the field of conjecture thus opened was limitless. Deerfoot might
have spent hours in theorizing and speculating, and still have been as
far from the truth as at the beginning; he might have formed schemes,
perfect in every detail, only to find, on investigation, that they were
wrong in every particular. The elaborate structures which the detective
rears are often builded on sand, and tumble to fragments on the
slightest touch.

Deerfoot was convinced that the boys either were captives in the hands
of Indians, or they were dead. Had they been slain by red men--and it
was not conceivable that both could have met death in any other way--it
was useless to hunt for their remains, since only fortunate chance could
end a search that might last a century.

But if the boys had been carried off, there was hope of gaining trace of
them, though that might involve endless wanderings to and fro, through
the mountains and wilderness. Such a hunt, prosecuted on a systematic
plan for a certain time, without any results, would satisfy Deerfoot
that the boys, like many older ones, had met their death in the lonely
depths of the wilderness, where no human eye would ever look upon them
again.

My reader, who has been let into the secret of the boys' disappearance,
will perceive that Deerfoot was hovering around the truth, though he was
still barred by difficulties almost insurmountable.

Suppose he should make up his mind that Jack and Otto were at that
moment with the red men, in w