Footprints in the Forest Part 23

Jack gave the particulars which the reader learned long ago, adding an account of the efforts made by Deerfoot and the Sauk to trace him, and of the despair all felt when they were told the captive had been left to die alone in the woods.

"I never expected to meet you again," said Jack, "and I couldn't understand why it was Deerfoot had any hope."

"'Cause he _knowed_," was the truthful remark.

"But what was the matter with you? You must have got well in a hurry."

Otto threw back his head and laughed in his old-fashioned, hearty style, adding:

"Do you d.i.n.ks I vos _very_ sick?"

And then the lad told his strange story, which perhaps you would prefer to hear in a little better accent than that of the narrator.

The statement made to Deerfoot by Lone Bear only a few hours before was shown to be accurate in every particular by the narrative of Otto himself, but it had a phase which neither Lone Bear nor any of his comrades suspected.

The Sauks who wandered away from their fellows, taking Otto along as their prisoner, met the p.a.w.nees, who, as the reader well knows, were a long ways from home. Otto was bartered to them, and his captors continued toward their village, many days' journey to the north and west. They went at a moderate pace, stopping and hunting by the way and making themselves familiar with the country, with a view of removing their lodges thither, provided they could find a satisfactory place.

They were many hours on this dismal tramp when Otto asked himself whether it would not be as well to give up all thought of returning home, and of becoming one of the people into whose hands he had fallen.

The hardship imposed by his parents impelled him to such a course, and, more than once, he decided not to make any effort to leave the p.a.w.nees, even if a good opportunity offered. Had it not been for Jack Carleton and his kind mother he probably would have become an adopted p.a.w.nee.

But, as the distance between him and his humble cabin in far away Martinsville increased, a feeling of homesickness crept over him until he was utterly miserable. He finally reached the resolve that he would never rest until he was back again in the log cabin near the banks of the Mississippi; no matter how oppressive his lot, it was _home_, and that was preferable to a gilded palace.

The prisoner in the dungeon finds no difficulty in making up his mind to leave; the insurmountable task is to carry out his intention; and the days and nights pa.s.sed without the first glimmer of hope appearing in the sky of Otto Relstaub.

Several times he saw chances which he believed would enable him to get away, but he feared the inevitable pursuit. He was so many miles from home that the most laborious tramping would be required for many days, even if able to proceed in a direct line.

It was this dread which prevented such an attempt on the part of Otto, while his homesickness increased until his appet.i.te vanished and his looks were woe-begone. While in this pitiful condition the poor fellow asked himself whether he could not feign illness to such a degree that his captors would abandon him to die.

The probabilities pointed the other way. In the first place the p.a.w.nees were quite certain to perceive the sham, and, in case they were deceived, they were likely to tomahawk Otto so as to end the annoyance.

These two considerations kept him plodding along with the party, which, fortunately for him, progressed slowly.

But while the youth's physical condition was not bad enough to deceive the Indians, he became desperate, and determined to take the first opportunity that presented itself. Within an hour he found a chance to pilfer some tobacco belonging to Lone Bear. He did so with such care that he was not suspected. Straightway he swallowed it, and I need not say that it was unnecessary for Otto to pretend he was ill; he was never in such a state of collapse in his life.

His deathly paleness convinced the p.a.w.nees that their captive was at death's door. They urged him to walk, but he could not, and they stayed in camp longer than was intended, in the hope that the patient would rally.

Otto showed a good deal of pluck when, finding himself recovering, he resolutely swallowed some more of the poisonous weed and soon became so prostrated that he really believed his last hour was at hand. He was in great danger, for the nicotine threatened the seat of life, and Otto lost interest in every thing, feeling that it would be a relief to perish and end his misery.

This was his condition when the p.a.w.nees formed the opinion that he could not live more than an hour or two at the most. Accordingly, they covered him with leaves, laid his hat over his face, and, placing his gun beside him, went off. The youth lay hovering, as it seemed, between life and death. While in that condition, he detected a footfall near him. He was able to turn his head, but could not move his body. He recognized Red Wolf, who was standing a few steps away, knife in hand. He had returned to take the scalp of the dying lad, and would have done so, had not Lone Bear, coming from another direction, interfered. By some argument he led the other to change his mind, and both walked away.

From that moment reaction set in, and Otto rallied fast. It was beginning to grow dark, and he was soon shut in by impenetrable gloom.

Fearful that Red Wolf or some one else would steal upon him in the night, he crept deeper into the wood, where he knew he could not be found when the sun was not shining.

Although his rugged system rapidly threw off the nicotine poisoning, he was weak and dizzy. He gained a few hours sleep before morning, but was awake at the earliest streakings of light and started on his return.

Otto Relstaub's previous experience in the woods now served him well. He discovered that the war party, instead of continuing westward, were retrograding and doubling on their own trail. He suspected the true reason they were prospecting for a new site for their villages. He had judged from their actions that something of the kind was in their thoughts.

As the course of the lad lay in the same direction, he wisely chose to deviate until he was far off their trail, so as to avoid any risk of them.

Otto's deliverance from captivity was singular indeed, but he was too wise to consider it complete until certain that such was the case. He feared that Red Wolf or some of his comrades would return to the spot where he had been abandoned; and, discovering the trick, instantly pursue him.

He therefore devoted many hours to elaborate efforts to obliterate his own trail, or to shape it so that even a bloodhound could not track him.

He crossed all the streams he could, wading long distances through the water where the depth was too great to permit his footprints to be seen.

When he finally emerged, he often did so on the same side which he entered, perhaps repeating his maneuver once or twice before leaving the stream by the opposite bank.

This played havoc with Otto's garments, which were torn and injured until it looked doubtful whether they would last him through his journey. Sometimes, while walking where the water was only a little above his knees, he would abruptly step into that which was six or eight feet deep, but he always reached bottom.

During the first day, when the vigorous system of the fugitive demanded food, and he saw the chance of bringing down a wild turkey which trotted swiftly across his path, he refrained through fear that the report of his gun would betray him. He ate a few berries that seemed to have lived over from the preceding winter (the season being rather early for any thing of the kind to have grown since), chewed some tender buds, and lying down at night, thanked heaven he felt so well.

Reaching the bank of the river across which his friends had pa.s.sed several times, he felt the opportunity for which he longed had come.

With much labor, he succeeded in constructing a raft sufficiently buoyant to float him without resting any part of his body in the water.

Pushing this out into the stream, he drifted fully three miles, gradually working the support toward the further sh.o.r.e.

"Dere," he exclaimed, when he stepped out on land, "dey won't find my tracks if dey don't look all summer."

This was the fact, so far as trailing the fugitive from the spot where he was abandoned, but it so happened that the course of the raft down stream carried him into the very section where his late captors were hunting back and forth. The wonder was that he was not discovered, for there must have been times when his enemies were on each side the river, and he was floating directly between them--and that, too, when the sun was shining.

He was so tired that he lay down beside a fallen tree and slept until near nightfall. Even then he was aroused by the report of a gun so near him that he started up and rushed off in such haste that he left his hat behind him. Soon another rifle was discharged so close that he believed he was surrounded by foes. He had missed his hat, but dared not go back after it, the last gun seeming to have been fired from a point near it.

All he strove to do was to get as far from the spot as he could in the least time possible. A strong wind, accompanied by some rain, followed and hastened his footsteps.

It certainly was remarkable that the fugitive's presence so near a number of the hostiles was not discovered, but there is no reason to believe that any such suspicion entered their minds, or that they dreamed of the trick played on them by the captive when he seemed to be lying at the point of death.

Otto pressed on, until once more he felt he had the best ground for believing he would elude his enemies; but he was famishing for food, and when in the moment of temptation, a dozen wild turkeys trotted by him in the woods, he fell and let fly at the plumpest, which also fell.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A STARTLING INTERRUPTION.

When Deerfoot, the Shawanoe, first saw the recovered hat of Otto Relstaub, and tried hard to guess how it came to be left where Jack Carleton found it, he recalled the words of Lone Bear to the effect that it was placed over the face of the boy who was deserted three days'

journey away in the woods. The conclusion was natural that the hat had been carried the intervening distance by the boy himself, who must have recovered from the severe illness that brought him low.

At the very moment the young warrior was beginning to suspect the truth about the youth's illness, the faint report of a rifle came to his ears.

Necessarily there could be nothing in the sound of the gun which could identify it, but Deerfoot was sure it was fired by Otto, who was either defending himself against some danger or was after his dinner.

Whatever the immediate cause, the Shawanoe felt that haste was necessary to reach the fugitive, who was likely to be sought by the p.a.w.nees, who also must have heard the report of his rifle. He therefore started on the pursuit, as it may be called, with the Sauk and Jack Carleton at his heels.

That marvelous delicacy of hearing, which was one of the characteristics of Deerfoot, enabled him not only to a.s.sure himself of the precise direction of the sound, but to fix the point whence it came. Gaining sight of the ridge, he was convinced that the lad who fired it was in that vicinity. He therefore pointed out the portion which was to be examined by the Sauk, while he reserved a similar area to be gone over by himself--the difference being that he was confident of finding Otto, provided he had not moved far from the spot where he stood when he discharged his gun.

On the way thither, the Shawanoe glanced right and left in search of the trail, but as an intervening storm had obliterated it, and Deerfoot went in a direct line, he of course failed to find it.

Otto Relstaub's woodcraft enabled him to travel intelligently through the wilderness. The second storm overtook him just before reaching the rocky ridge, and he was fortunate to find shelter in a slight cave from the driving rain. Despite the peril from which he had just escaped, he determined to stay where he was until, so to speak, he could recruit.

The wild turkeys, of which I have spoken, were abundant in the neighborhood, and he had no difficulty in killing one when he wanted it.

He did so, on first reaching the vicinity, and the last one was brought down at the moment Deerfoot was studying the vexing problem as to what had become of their young German friend.

The Shawanoe was approaching the truth when, as I have said, the report solved the mystery, and, while hurrying through the woods with Jack and the Sauk, he was almost positive that they would find the lad for whom they had sought so long in vain. He did not believe, of course, that Otto had entirely feigned the sickness which was the means of saving his life, for the story of Lone Bear forbade that. He did suspect, however, that the captive had been taken ill and probably made it appear worse than was the case, and that, when left alone, he rapidly recovered and took advantage of the surprising chance thus given him in perfect innocence by the p.a.w.nees. What struck Deerfoot as singular was that the Indians should have been so deceived, and that none of them returned afterward--excepting Red Wolf and Lone Bear--to learn whether he had perished. Most likely they went over their trail once more on their homeward journey. That of necessity must have been so long after the abandonment of the lad, that (leaving out of account the doing of Otto's friends) the p.a.w.nees would not make the effort to hunt again for the fugitive whose long start put him beyond danger of recapture.