"It is the effects of the fever," said Mrs. Morris. "The doctor says you will have to take it easy for several months."
Rodney, too, had suffered from the march through the forest and from the fighting and was confined more or less to the house.
"It's a shame—and just after I thought I was getting so strong," sighed the cripple. "Somehow, we seem to be an ill-fated family."
During all those dreary months no direct word had come to them concerning little Nell, but through White Buffalo had come a report that a certain tribe of Indians known as the Little Waters had several white girls in their keeping and that one old Indian chief had taken one of the captives as his daughter, he being childless.
"If they take 'em in as their children they'll treat 'em putty civil-like," said Sam Barringford. "But I reckon you don't want to lose little Nell even so."
"No! no!" said Mrs. Morris. "Oh, we must get her back somehow!"
After this news was brought in, Barringford and Dave's father went north-westward once more, in the hope of opening negotiations with the Indians. How this trip would turn out was still a question, although White Buffalo declared that little could
