Deerfoot the Shawanoe had withdrawn, and then it advanced with the
care and stealth of the trained Indian on the war-path.

The craft was full of Miamis and Shawanoes, armed to the teeth, and
impelled by the greatest incentive that can inflame the passions of
the American Indian--revenge.




CHAPTER XVIII

ON THE LOUISIANA SHORE


At last the little party were across the Mississippi. The Indian
canoe, so injured that it was useless until repaired, was pushed
back into the turbid current and went spinning down the river,
sometimes bumping against the bank and then dancing further from
shore, until striking broadside against a nodding "sawyer," it
overturned, and thereafter resembled an ordinary log, on its way
toward the Gulf.

It was the first time that Jack Carleton had placed foot on
Louisiana soil, and be stood for a moment gazing backward at
Kentucky, amid whose confines he was born and beyond which he never
strayed, except when on an occasional hunting excursion into Ohio.

"I wonder whether I shall ever tread those forests again," he said
to himself; "I can't say that I'm anxious to do so, for there have