brief apace,
his anxieties, whatever these might be.

Jo Bumpus smiled benignantly, and said that he "was glad to hear it."
For Jo had conceived for the boy that species of fondness which large
dogs are frequently known to entertain for small ones--permitting them
to take outrageous liberties with their persons which they would resent
furiously were they attempted by other dogs.

Presently the warm visage of Bumpus elongated, and his eyes opened
uncommonly wide as he stared at a particular spot in the ground;
insomuch that Corrie burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.

"O Grampus, you'll kill me if you go on like that," said he; "I can't
stand it. Indeed I can't. Sich a face! D'ye know what it's like?"

Jo expressed no desire to become enlightened on this point, but
continued to gaze so earnestly that Corrie started up and
exclaimed--"What is it, Jo?"

"A fut!" replied Jo.

"A footprint, I declare!" shouted the boy, springing forward and
examining the print, which was pretty clearly defined in a little patch
of soft sand that lay on the bare rock. "Why, Jo, it's Poopy's. I'd
know it anywhere by the bigness of the little toe. How _can_ she have
come up here?"

"I say, lad, hist!" said Bumpus, in a hoarse whisper, "here's another
fut that don't belong to--what's her name--Puppy, did ye say?"

"Why, it's Alice's," whispered the boy, his face becoming instantly
grave, while an unwonted expression of anxiety crossed it, "and here's
that of a savage beside it. He must have changed his intention, or,
perhaps, he came this way to throw the people who were chasing them off
the scent."

Corrie was right. Finding that he was hotly pursued, Keona had taken
advantage of the first rocky ground he reached to diverge abruptly from
the route he had hitherto followed in his flight; and, the farther to
confuse his pursuers, he had taken the almost exhausted child up in his
arms and carried her a considerable distance, so that if his enemies
should fall again on his track the absence of the little footprints
might induce them to fancy they were following up a wrong scent.

In this he was so far successful, for the native settlers, as we have
seen, soon gave up the chase, and returned with one of the child's
shoes, which had fallen off unobserved by the savage.

But there was one of the pursuers who was far ahead of the others, and
who was urged to continue the chase by the strongest of all motives--
love. Poor