rticular fear of the Sauk whom he had
flung into the ravine, saw the possibility of his procuring friends and
coming back to revenge himself. Prudence suggested that the two should
secure themselves against such peril. Deerfoot, therefore, picked up the
tomahawk, shoved it into the girdle around his waist, grasped the rifle
in his right hand, and strode forward with his free, easy, swinging
gait. As there was no call for special caution, he told the story of his
encounter with the young Sauk who had raised his tomahawk to brain his
sleeping friend. Deerfoot's first intention was to drive an arrow
through his body, but he chose the method already described of
frustrating his purpose.

To make his story complete, it was necessary for the young Shawanoe to
begin with his visit to Jack's mother, and to describe the mental agony
of the good parent over the unaccountable absence of her boy. Then he
told of his meeting with the Sauk warrior, Hay-uta, who made such a
determined effort to take his life. From him he learned that a white
youth was a captive in the village, and he concluded, as a matter of
course, that there were to be found both Jack and Otto, though no
reference was made to the latter. The sagacious Shawanoe, however,
discovered an important fact or two which I did not refer to in telling
the incident. The first was that Hay-uta was one of the five Sauks who
separated from the other five directly after the capture of the boys.
With his company was Otto Relstaub, the Dutch youth, while Jack Carleton
was with the other. Hay-uta and his friends were on their way to the
village, and were almost within sight of it, when Hay-uta felt such
dissatisfaction over their failure to bring back any scalps or plunder,
that he drew off and declared he would not go home until he secured some
prize of that nature. His encounter with Deerfoot followed. When he left
the latter he went straight to his village. Deerfoot could have trailed
him without trouble, but, inasmuch as the Sauk had departed in that
manner, and the Shawanoe knew where his village lay, he purposely
avoided his trail, and followed a course that diverged so far to the
right that he first reached the village passed by Jack in his canoe. His
arrival, as sometimes happens in this life, was in the very nick of
time. From the red men, who showed a friendly disposition toward him, he
learned that not only had a pale face youth passed down the stream in a
canoe, but a you