always been too many Indians for comfort. They killed my father and
broke the heart of my mother. No, Kentucky, good bye," he added,
turning his face toward the west, with a feeling that in that
direction lay his future home.

Meanwhile Deerfoot and Otto took but a few minutes to prepare for
their journey. The Indian having lost his blanket, held only the,
rifle and ammunition by way of superfluous luggage, and it could not
be said that his companions were unduly burdened, since the runaway
colt had relieved them in that respect.

Deerfoot slung his long bow back of his shoulders, as he was
accustomed to do when he wished the unrestrained use of both arms,
and carried the rifle as the others did theirs.

The belief obtained with all three that in leaving Kentucky they
bade good-bye to most of the personal peril to which they bad been
subjected. The reader knows that that section was ravaged by the
fierce Shawanoes, Miamis, Hurons and other tribes who were
implacable in their hostility to the white men, and who did so much
to give it the name of the Dark and Bloody Ground by which it was so
long known. There were thousands of red men ranging through the
immense province known as Louisiana, and the crack of the hostile
rifle, the war-cry of the dusky chieftain, and the shock, of mortal
combat marked the meeting of the races, whether on the clearing, in
the forest, or in the lonely defile in the mountain.

In that section to which I have referred more than once, as now
bearing the name of Missouri, the fighting between the whites and
Indians was much less than on the eastern bank of the Mississippi.