to toddle out doors, he could not compare in his lingual skill to
Deerfoot, who had never attempted a word of the language until
wounded and taken prisoner by the whites. What caused all this
difference?

The same thing which distinguishes one man from another, and crowns
failure with success, or reverses it, as the case may be--brains.

The three youths moved down the bank in an irregular Indian file,
for no one saw the need of extra precaution. Deerfoot was about a
rod in advance, walking with a brisk step, for his searching eyes
took in everything in the field of vision, and the trail for which
he was searching was sure to be marked with a distinctness that
could permit no mistake.

It was the same apparently endless forest which met their eyes when
they looked across from Kentucky, and which seemed to encroach on
the borders of the river itself, as though envious of its space.
There was little undergrowth, and they advanced without difficulty.

"I dinks be ish close to vere de colt goomes owet", said Otto, his
words uttered with such deliberation that it was manifest he was
doing his best to heed the appeal of the young Kentuckian.

"That is a decided improvement," Jack hastened to say, with an
approving smile. You don't pronounce very well, but you built up
that sentence better than usual."

"Dot's vot I dinks no times, yaw--I means dot ish vot I dinks mine
Belf."