A new master was now his, a chief of the Chippeways; a new squaw set him hateful, degrading tasks, and ordered him about; the young men and the squaws laughed him to scorn; life became more bitter than ever before.

Gradually, however, Kerr’s new owners relaxed their severity of treatment, and his lines grew less unpleasant.  Time, indeed, made him almost popular—­embarrassingly popular—­for there came a day when the tribe more than hinted its desire that the Pale-face should wed one of its most beauteous daughters.  Happily, the question of who should be bride was left in abeyance.  He became, too, almost reconciled to his dress, or want of dress—­though, to be sure, a coat of paint and a blanket cannot, at the best, be regarded as more than a passably efficient hot-weather costume.  With the easy adaptability of boyhood, Andrew Kerr had become almost a veritable Indian.

Now, Peewash all this time had looked with covetous eye on his former slave, and desired to repossess him.  A big price would have to be paid, no doubt; but Peewash was prepared to bid high, and the owner could not withstand a temptation, backed, as it was, by that bait irresistible to a Red Indian, “firewater.”  The boy again changed hands, and now for some time served his original captor.

About this period the Tribes again “dug up the hatchet,” and set out on a big war-trail.  Cruel and bloody was the fighting, many the prisoners taken and brought into camp from time to time.  On one occasion young Kerr was compelled to stand, a horrified spectator, among the exulting Redskins as with yells of gratified triumph, warriors and squaws, young men and children, gloated fiercely over the brutal torture and lingering death of eight English prisoners.  It was a grim and grisly spectacle, for no form of torment—­from the nerve-wracking test of knife and tomahawk, arrow or bullet, aimed with intent to graze the flesh and not immediately to kill, to the ghastly ordeal of red-hot ramrods and blazing pine-root splinters thrust into the flesh or under the nails —­was omitted by those bloodthirsty red devils.  Many a sleepless hour, many a night broken by awful dreams, must the sight have cost the boy.  But it determined him to attempt escape at all hazards whenever kind fortune should put the chance in his way.

And fortune did help him ere long.  There was a French trader named Boileau who came much about the camp.  To him Andrew very cautiously made advances, and succeeded at last in enlisting the man’s sympathies.  Kerr confided to the trader his desire to attempt escape, and, none too willingly at the beginning, Boileau agreed to take the risk of helping.  It was no easy task to lull the suspicions and to evade the watchful eye of the crafty Indians; but the boy had never, so far, shown any desire to escape, and he was not now so everlastingly under supervision.  In very bad English on Boileau’s part, and in worse French on that of Kerr, a plan of escape was devised.  Early in the day, Boileau, after his usual habit, was to leave camp in his canoe, ostensibly setting out on an ordinary trapping expedition.  After nightfall, he would return to a certain rock on the lake shore, and then Kerr was to steal out and attempt to join him; thereafter, a night’s paddling ought to take the fugitive out of the immediate danger-zone.