Footprints in the Forest

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

There was much to occupy his attention, and keep alive his interest; for the discomfited Lone Bear and his mock sympathizers were in plain sight, and the gesticulations were so clear that it seemed to Jack he could comprehend the words spoken.

But the most stirring scenes lose in time their interest, and, despite the situation of Jack Carleton, it was not long before his thoughts reverted to Otto Relstaub.

"Poor fellow," he muttered, "it does seem as if every thing went wrong with him; I have no father, but if I had, he could love me no more than mother. With Otto, however, it is a thousand 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."