Jack was in despair; then he was angered.

"Go on; go _somewhere_; don't stop here!" he said.

And he almost shoved him off his feet in his desperate impatience.

"Vosn't dot fooney?" said Otto, breaking into another desperate run; "it
is the road arter all."

Not only at that moment, but for some time previous, it must have been
in the power of the Pawnees to bring down both boys by shots from their
guns. The intervening space was so brief, that all could not have
missed, and when Otto made his last dash for safety, Jack Carleton was
in such a direct line behind him, that a single well-aimed bullet would
have laid both low; but the Indians, confident there was no escape for
the boys, determined to make both prisoners.

Deerfoot, the Shawanoe, always referred to the action of the red men at
that time as almost unexplainable. They must have known that the youths
had friends close by, and that one of them was the young warrior whom
they believed to be in league with the Evil One. The footprints which
had guided them through the forest told that fact. There were only four
Pawnees (one of whom was the warrior whom Deerfoot and Hay-uta held a
prisoner the night before, and then allowed to go), and as the number of
fugitives, if such they may be called, was the same, the advantage
certainly could not be claimed by the hostiles. What common sense
directed was for them to shoot the boys, and then withdraw, at least
until re-enforcements arrived. Their failure to do so was a piece of
shortsightedness which neither the Shawanoe nor Sauk understood.

The respite gained by the quick shot of Otto Relstaub was provident; it
threw every one of their pursuers behind them, and the redoubled efforts
of the lads carried them swiftly over the remaining space.

"Here we ish!" exclaimed the panting Otto, almost falling again.

"Where?" demanded the terrified friend; "I don't see anything like the
cave you told me about."

"It ish de pest dot we have," replied the German lad, noticing the
disappointment of his companion.

CHAPTER XXIX.

A FIGHT AND A RETREAT.

That which Otto had called a cave proved really no cave at all. Up the
winding ascent the fugitives sped, until opposite a lip or shelf, which
projected from the rocks on their left. It extended forward three or
four feet, rudely sloping away like the forepiece of a cap, but the
concavity below was less than half that depth. Jack expected to find a
retreat ten or