fold worse, for he is
treated as if he were an intruder in his own home. He has been abused,
almost starved, and, to crown all, sent into the woods to look for a
horse that was lost a long time before, and of which there remains not
the faintest footprint. I wonder whether they will ever grieve for Otto
if we go back and tell them he is dead?"

When Jack pondered over the cause which led his friend to leave home, he
could not express his feelings. To him there was something
incomprehensible in the brutality of the parents toward their only
child. He was tempted to believe it was all a great mistake.

But second thought showed there was no error, and he asked himself
whether there was any ground to hope that the German lad was alive, and,
if so, whether he could be restored to his friends.

The fact that Otto was not among the group on the other side of the
stream, added to the misgiving. Hay-uta had made known that he
recognized members of the strange party of Indians to whom the boy was
sold. If they had kept their captive, where else could he be except with
them?

"Every thing points to his death," was the sad conclusion of Jack; "it
isn't likely they would trade him off to some one else."

Indeed, to believe such a thing would be to give the captive an
unreasonable value as a circulating medium; it was far more likely that,
finding his presence a burden, his captors had settled it in the most
natural manner that presented itself.

A still darker side to the picture caused Jack to shudder. If the
captors of Otto Relstaub had put him to death, was it by a quick taking
off, or had he been subjected to torture? Alas, that Jack Carleton was
forced to answer the query as he most dreaded.

"But, if he _is_ dead," he added, with a sigh, "he perished long ago,
and it can make no difference _now_ to him; but I ain't ready to give up
all hope and I won't do so, so long as Deerfoot holds on."

Forcing the distressing subject from his mind, the youth compelled
himself to give attention to what could be seen on the other side of the
river. Lone Bear and Red Wolf were seated by the camp-fire, talking
together, as has been told elsewhere, but the rest of the hostiles were
out of sight. Jack naturally wondered the cause of the sudden quarrel
that had sprung up between Deerfoot and the warrior who figured so
ridiculously in it, but he could only await the return of the Shawanoe
to hear the explanation.

The excitement of th