d forward with the utmost speed
he could command, so that the frightened Jack could not find fault with
his tardiness.

The leader was following no beaten path or clearly marked trail, but was
heading toward a point half way up the ridge, where a mass of rocks rose
higher than any others near them, and among which the boy had found a
refuge from the storm that drove him thither--a storm which it may be
necessary to say, was so local in its character, that Deerfoot and his
friends, who were not far off, saw nothing of the elemental disturbance.

The Pawnees, who were seeking to surround the boys at the moment they
started, came from different points, all converging so as to shut in the
fugitives, as they would have done had a little more time been given
them. As it was, when Jack and Otto faced the rocks, their enemies in
their rear, one or two were uncomfortably close.

Indeed, there was one fierce warrior nigh enough to interpose across the
path of the fugitives. Otto had taken a dozen steps or so after climbing
to his feet, when the savage, brandishing his tomahawk in one hand while
he grasped his gun in the other, shouted continually some exclamation
which was clearly a command to halt, but which, it need not be said, was
disobeyed.

Quick to see that he was wasting his breath, the red man, with a couple
of bounds, placed himself so directly in front of Otto that the latter
could not pass him without turning to one side.

"There's no use of fooling with that fellow," was the conclusion of Jack
Carleton, raising the hammer of his gun, without slackening his speed;
but before he could bring the weapon to his shoulder, Otto stopped
short, throwing up his gun at the same moment, and let drive at the
warrior, who could not have had any suspicion that he was in danger
until the red tongue shot from the muzzle almost in his face, and then
scarce time was given him to know what was coming when his interest in
earthly things ceased.

With an ear-splitting screech, he flung up both arms, the gun and
tomahawk flying several feet in the air from the spasmodic movement, and
he went forward on his face, head and shoulders being thrown so far back
that his chest struck the ground first, chin and forehead following like
the rockers of a chair.

"Well done!" called out Jack. "Push ahead and we shall be safe."

Suddenly Otto slackened and turned about with a blanched face.

"Mein gracious! I dinks I hef got de wrong road!"