lter.

"You arc coming around all right, old chap," said Charley, cheerily.

His voice and face brought back to the Indian lad with a rush the
memory of the recent ordeal he had been through. He gave one glance at
the unconscious form on the other couch and his hand darted to the
hunting-knife at his hip as he staggered, dizzily, to his feet.

"Stop, you are among friends," cried Charley, holding up both empty
hands palm upward as a token of peace. "You were grazed on the head by
a rifle bullet and it knocked you out for a few minutes, so I went out
in my canoe and towed you in. Your father is hurt pretty bad, but I
have fixed him up good as I can and I think he will pull through with
care."

The little Indian lad's keen, beady eyes searched the white lad's open,
smiling face, his hand dropped from his knife, and he sunk back weakly
on the couch.

"My father over there, heap big chief," he declared proudly, in
guttural English. "Name Big Tiger. Me, they call Little Tiger." A
shade of suspicion crept over his face. "You white you say you friend.
More whites hid behind trees and shoot and kill many of Big Tiger's
braves," he said with an ironical smile.

Charley saw that now, if ever, was the time to clear his little party
from the natural suspicion of the Seminole. He sat down on the couch
opposite and his honest blue eyes met the other's keen, black ones
unwaveringly. "The Seminoles, once a mighty people, have grown as few
in number as the deer in the forest," he began, falling naturally into
the speech of the Indians. "Yet, few though they became, there walked
among them, at least, one of their race whose heart and mind was like
the night when the moon shines not and clouds have hid the stars. One
day this evil one rose up and slew a harmless white settler. The wise
men of the tribe took counsel together, saying, 'times are changing, we
will turn him over to the law of the white men.' The ears of the
Little Tiger may have heard whispered the name of the white settler's
slayer."

The Indian's eyes were gleaming with scorn and hatred. "Injun
Charley," he hissed.

"The white men judged the slayer of the settler according to their
laws. They sent him to ha shackled with chain and iron ball and do
heavy, squaw-work in misery the balance of his years. They did not say
because this Indian was bad that all Seminoles were slayers of white
men."

The young Indian started up and began to speak, but Cha