While the sun was yet high in the heavens, his uncle sent him back to
the log-cabin for Willie, and sent a man with him to guide them both
within sight of home. Great was their alarm when the inmates of the
house told them they had not seen the little boy. They searched, in hot
haste, in every direction. Diverging from the road to the cabin was a
path known as the Indian trail, on which hunters, of various tribes,
passed and repassed in their journeys to and from Canada. The prints of
Willie's shoes were traced some distance on this path, but disappeared
at a wooded knoll not far off. The inmates of the cabin said a party of
Indians had passed that way in the forenoon. With great zeal they joined
in the search, taking with them horns and dogs. Charley ran hither and
thither, in an agony of remorse and terror, screaming, "Willie! Willie!"
Horns were blown with all the strength of manly lungs; but there was no
answer,--not even the illusion of an echo. All agreed in thinking that
the lost boy had been on the Indian trail; but whether he had taken it
by mistake, or whether he had been tempted aside from his path by hopes
of finding prairie-dogs, was matter of conjecture. Charley was almost
exhausted by fatigue and anxiety, when his father's man guided him
within sight of home, and told him to go to his mother, while he
returned to give the alarm to Uncle George.
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