Deerfoot identified the object before reaching it. His friends followed him doubtingly, and while a rod to the rear, saw him gather it up and hold it aloft.
"It is your blanket," said Jack Carleton to his companion.
"Dot ish what it be."
It was easy to understand why the piece of coarse cloth lay on the ground. Instead of rolling it up with the smaller one belonging to Jack Carleton, Otto had made a separate bundle and strapped it behind the other effects on the back of the horse. The latter in moving among the trees had displaced it.
It was saturated with water, which dripped from the folds when raised from the ground. Jack and Otto twisted it between them until all the moisture it was possible to wring out left it in a dozen tiny rills. "Deerfoot," said the German, wheeling about, "dot ish de blanket vot—vot I don't—vot I put on your shoulders ven it rained."
The Shawanoe bowed his head, smiled and said:
"Deerfoot knows his brother speaks truth."
"I gives him to you—be ish yours."
The Indian made no move to take it, and Jack added:
"We shall soon find the colt and with him my blanket and the other articles he has with him. We do not need this; you have none, and you have many miles to traverse before you reach your home; we shall be glad if you will take it from us."
Deerfoot partly raised his hand to accept the gift, but stepped back with a shake of his head.
"When my brother goes to the cabin of his father, and, he asks him for the blanket, what will he say?"
"I vill tells him dot I gives him mit you."
"Then the father of my brother will strike him."
"I dinks dot ish so," said Otto with a grin and shrug of his shoulders, "but I be glad to take a flogging for him dot does so much for me—don't it?"
The youth compressed his thin lips and made a single shake of his head, so positive in its character that nothing more was needed.
"But," added Jack Carleton, convinced from the hesitancy shown at first by Deerfoot, that he really wished the blanket, "if you are so desirous of saving Otto from a flogging, it can be easily done. When we take back the colt and Mr. Relstaub asks for the blanket, we can tell him that an Indian took it before we found the horse. That will be the truth."
Deerfoot looked straight in the face of the young Kentuckian, and his lips parted as if on the point of speaking, but he refrained, and with his shadowy smile, again shook his head. The gesture said as plainly as the words could have done:
"What you propose is as much a falsehood as anything can be."
"But I will give Otto my blanket," persisted Jack Carleton, determined to overcome the scruples of the remarkable Indian, "that will make things right."
"Where is my brother's blanket?" asked Deerfoot with a grave countenance.
"I shall soon find it: the horse can't be far off."
"Deerfoot will wait till my brother finds it."
"Well! well", said Jack, with a wondering sigh, "you are the strangest person I ever saw. It isn't worth while to argue any question with you. So we'll let it pass."
Such seemed to be the wish of Deerfoot, for, with his silent step, he moved along the elevated ground, until he arrived at a spot where the trees were so few and stunted that an extended view was obtained. There the three halted side by side, and spent several minutes gazing over the surrounding country.
Looking toward Kentucky, the majestic Mississippi was in plain sight as it swept southward, while beyond stretched the undulating forest, until it met the dim horizon in the distance. Far to the southward was seen the smoke of a campfire. It was unusually murky, and, as it ascended in a wavy line through the clear atmosphere, it looked as if the soiled finger of some great ogre had been drawn against the clear blue sky.
But it was a sight which every one of the party had seen before, and it excited little interest. It was no concern of theirs what took place in Kentucky, and Jack and Otto turned to survey the "promised land," which opened out to the westward.
Woods, patches of natural clearing, hills and misty mountains many miles away: these were the general features of the immense area which expanded before their sight. Ordinarily there was nothing among these of special account, but the eye of Deerfoot, which never seemed to lose anything, detected almost instantly a "sign" that signified a great deal to him and his companions.
In a depression, no more than a furlong distant, could be observed the faintest possible tinge of smoke, slowly ascending from a mass of dense forest. It was so faint, in fact, that neither Jack nor Otto noticed it, until Deerfoot pointed his finger in that direction, and said "The camp of red men!"
The vapor was of a light blue, just above the tree-top's, and it rose only a few feet more, when it dissolved in the clear atmosphere. But it showed that a camp-fire was burning beneath, though it may have been kindled many hours before, and those who started it possibly were miles away in the depths of the forest.
"Suppose they are Shawanoes or Miamis?" remarked Jack.
"They are not Shawanoes," said Deerfoot quietly.
"Miamis then?"
"Deerfoot thinks they are not Miamis, but he cannot be sure till he sees the camp."
And without further remark, he went down the slope with a rapid step, which, it is hardly necessary to say, gave out no noise at all. Jack concluded he could not feel much misgiving or he would not have allowed him and Otto to follow so close on his heels. But they were some distance off, when he turned about and motioned them to halt.
"Let my brothers wait for Deerfoot," he said softly.
Knowing he would be obeyed without question, Deerfoot continued his advance, speedily disappearing from sight among the trees and undergrowth, while the others did as he requested.
The discovery of the camp-fire not only caused some misgivings about the personal safety of the little company, but it suggested that the missing horse was lost beyond recovery. Horse-flesh is the most "sensitive capital" on the frontier, and he who pilfers it runs more danger of lynching than does the man who takes the life of a fellow being. To the Indian, the noble animal is as indispensable as to the settler, and, if the party who had made the halt in that neighborhood learned that an unusually fine steed was wandering near them, they would lose no time in making him captive.
But from the moment our young friends left their elevated position, they followed a different route from that of the colt.
"Mine gracious!" whispered the disturbed German lad: "I dinks dot if they don't got de golt then the golt don't got dem, and fader he won't be as bleased as nefer vos."
"There isn't any hurry, Otto, in putting your words together, and it is a good time for you to try to string them so they will make a little sense."
"Yaw; I vill tries."
"Sh! There comes some one!"
It was Deerfoot, who appeared a moment later, and beckoned his friends to join him. His manner, while not careless, was so manifestly free from solicitude, that Jack knew there was no ground for alarm. He and Otto overtook the Shawanoe at the moment he stepped into the open space where a camp-fire had been burning some time before.
In fact it was still burning, else the smoke would not have caught the eye of the Indian youth; but it must have been smoldering for hours, judging from the thinness of the vapor, and the fact that little more than a pile of ashes and decaying embers met the sight.
There is naught to be said in the way of description. The fire, when kindled, had been a large one, and all the burning sticks were in one pile instead of two or three, as is often the case. The charred ends protruded irregularly from the white, feathery ashes, and one solitary brand, smothered almost from sight, sent up the faint bluish vapor which, creeping through the foliage overhead, told the vigilant Shawanoe where to look for the camp of his enemies.
"How long have they been gone?" asked Jack, gazing carefully around and assuring himself that no strangers were near.
"They went away when the sun first came up from the woods; many hours have passed since they left."
"Which course did they take?"
Deerfoot pointed toward the south.
"Were you right in saying they were not Shawanoes?"
"They did not belong to my tribe."
"Ah, then they were Miamis. I made up my mind to that."
"My brother is wrong," replied Deerfoot, with a flitting smile; "they were Osage Indians."
"How don't you know dot?"
"My other brother is wrong: Deerfoot said not he did not know it; he does know they were Osages."
Jack Carleton poked Otto in the side.
"Even Deerfoot corrects your language."
"All rights," said Otto, bristling up; "I'ven I don't haf a mind to, I talks mebbe better nor you does; but ven I does, den I don't; so I shets up my mouth up, mebbe—don't it?"
Deerfoot stepped to a fallen tree, which no doubt had served as a seat for most of the party, and picked up a strip of blanket, hardly a foot long and no more than an inch wide. It was not only cunningly woven, but showed brilliant blue and yellow colors on a background of black.
"This was the blanket of an Osage warrior," said the Shawanoe, flinging it to Otto, who turned it over several times in silence, Jack looking over his shoulder.
"I suppose he caught sight of that before we came up and learned the truth; don't you think so?"
"I don't dink nodings more," replied Otto, still pouting from the offence given a few minutes previous.
Bending over, Deerfoot carefully drew some leaves aside and revealed the upper bone of a deer's foreleg, to which a good quantity of partially broiled venison was clinging. Judging from this discovery and the number of bones scattered about, the Osages had more food than they needed.
"We—that is, you and I, Deerfoot—are hungry. Is the meat in shape for us to eat?"
The Shawanoe had satisfied himself by examination that it was ready for the palate, and he so expressed himself.
"That is good; there is just enough to make as a good dinner. Otto doesn't look as though he cared about any, and he can wait till tomorrow."
This statement of the situation quickly loosened the tongue of the sturdy German, whose hunger had reached a ravenous point.
"I speaks mit myself luf ven I vishes," he hastened to say; "I vos as hungry as nefer could be, and what for you dinks I ain't, eh?"
Jack laughed, and, sitting on the same tree which had served the red men, all three used their keen hunting-knives upon the rarely-cooked meat. They could have enjoyed much more had it been at their disposal; but as it was, they made a substantial meal, receiving enough nourishment to last them till the morrow.
"How many warriors were here?" asked Jack of their leader.
"Seven," was the prompt reply.
"What brought them to this place?"
"They were hunting; an Osage village is not many miles off yonder," said Deerfoot, pointing to the southwest; "and they have gone there. They spent the night here."
"Did they get my horse?" asked Otto, whose face was aglow with good nature and grease.
"My brother shall soon know."
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