The sun was rising in ruddy glory when Wetzel ran his canoe into the bank just ahead of a sharp bend in the stream.

“Do we get out here?” asked Jim, seeing Jonathan turn his canoe toward Wetzel’s.

“The village lies yonder, around the bend,” answered the guide.  “Wetzel cannot go there, so I’ll take you all in my canoe.”

“There’s no room; I’ll wait,” replied Joe, quietly.  Jim noted his look—­a strange, steady glance it was—­and then saw him fix his eyes upon Nell, watching her until the canoe passed around the green-bordered bend in the stream.

Unmistakable signs of an Indian town were now evident.  Dozens of graceful birchen canoes lay upon the well-cleared banks; a log bridge spanned the stream; above the slight ridge of rising ground could be seen the poles of Indian teepees.

As the canoe grated upon the sandy beach a little Indian boy, who was playing in the shallow water, raised his head and smiled.

“That’s an Indian boy,” whispered Kate.

“The dear little fellow!” exclaimed Nell.

The boy came running up to them, when they were landed, with pleasure and confidence shining in his dusky eyes.  Save for tiny buckskin breeches, he was naked, and his shiny skin gleamed gold-bronze in the sunlight.  He was a singularly handsome child.

“Me—­Benny,” he lisped in English, holding up his little hand to Nell.

The action was as loving and trusting as any that could have been manifested by a white child.  Jonathan Zane stared with a curious light in his dark eyes; Mr. Wells and Jim looked as though they doubted the evidence of their own sight.  Here, even in an Indian boy, was incontestable proof that the savage nature could be tamed and civilized.

With a tender exclamation Nell bent over the child and kissed him.

Jonathan Zane swung his canoe up-stream for the purpose of bringing Joe.  The trim little bark slipped out of sight round the bend.  Presently its gray, curved nose peeped from behind the willows; then the canoe swept into view again.  There was only one person in it, and that the guide.

“Where is my brother?” asked Jim, in amazement.

“Gone,” answered Zane, quietly.

“Gone!  What do you mean?  Gone?  Perhaps you have missed the spot where you left him.”

“They’re both gone.”

Nell and Jim gazed at each other with slowly whitening faces.

“Come, I’ll take you up to the village,” said Zane, getting out of his canoe.  All noticed that he was careful to take his weapons with him.

“Can’t you tell us what it means—­this disappearance?” asked Jim, his voice low and anxious.

“They’re gone, canoe and all.  I knew Wetzel was going, but I didn’t calkilate on the lad.  Mebbe he followed Wetzel, mebbe he didn’t,” answered the taciturn guide, and he spoke no more.