"It looks likely," said O'Hara, as he and Dick stood deliberating upon the proper course to pursue, "that he would take the nearest cut to the settlement, and then again it doesn't look so likely. Lew is such a fool, there's no telling what he'd do."
"Why do you think he wouldn't take the shortest way home?"
"'Cause he wouldn't, that's why. You see, Dick," added Tom, in a more pleasant voice, "Shawnees are in the woods, and it's no ways unpossible that they haven't learned that them two fools are tramping through the country. If they do it, why it looks nateral that they'd s'pose they'd try to reach home just as soon as they could, and would try to head 'em off. Now, if the red-skins know this, Lew knows also that they know it, and I hope, for our own credit, he's got too much sense to walk into any of their traps. That's the reason why I think he may have took a longer way home."
"Just exactly what he has done," said Dick in a glow of admiration.
"How do you know it is, eh?"
"I mean I think so, of course."
"Well, say what you mean, next time. And that is what makes all the difficulty. How are we to know where to look for his trail?"
"It's pretty certain we won't find it by standing here all day."
"You go west and I will follow the creek, and when you stumble on any thing worth looking at, just give the whistle."
The two did as proposed. Dick ranged backward and forward until nightfall, while O'Hara examined the banks of the creek, until the gathering darkness made it a hopeless task. Upon coming together, they had nothing favorable to report, and thus ended the first day's search.