possible harm
could be done.

Deerfoot made his change in such a quiet fashion, that his hostess had
not the slightest suspicion of its meaning. She saw that he had simply
moved closer to the fire. The space between her own chair and that of
the visitor was such that there was no call for her to change her
location: had there been the slightest, Deerfoot would not have
permitted her to wait.

"My brother will hurt no one," said he in his quiet fashion: "he is a
bad man; he has a good boy, Otto; Deerfoot calls him his brother, and
will do much for him; but Deerfoot does not like his father."

"I was _so_ afraid he would strike you with his cane," said the lady,
still trembling over the remembrance, "and then you would have used your
knife."

The smile was more pronounced than before, but the words were scarcely
audible.

"He could not hurt Deerfoot and Deerfoot would not hurt him."

The lady fully understood his meaning, and it lifted a great fear from
her heart that Jacob Relstaub would return, demand admittance, and
attack her guest. True, he might do so, but she saw that in such an
event the results would be farcical rather than tragical.

Deerfoot did not care to give any further thought to the despicable man.
He had come to the settlement to visit Jack Carleton and Otto Relstaub,
and found they were absent on a singular hunt for the horse that had
been missing fully a week. His interest lay in them, and especially in
Jack. He had heard most of the facts from the mother, but he now
questioned her further in his gentle way until not a particle of
information was left for her to give.

The substance of that information has already been told the reader,--it
being nothing more than the statement of their departure early that
morning. The startling events which followed could not be suspected by
the parent, who sat so quietly knitting and talking with the remarkable
Indian youth on the other side of her hearthstone, as ignorant as she of
the alarming situation in which both were placed.

But while so quiet in his demeanor, the wonderful brain of the youth was
always busy during his waking hours. He could not feel that there was
cause for fear on account of his friends, for, as has already been
shown, that portion of the enormous territory of Louisiana was peopled
by Indians much less vicious in their hatred than were those who made
Kentucky their hunting-ground. A fierce party of Shawanoes had followed
the lit