Jo Bumpus smiled benignantly, and said that he "was glad to hear it." For Jo had conceived for the boy that species of fondness which large dogs are frequently known to entertain for small ones--permitting them to take outrageous liberties with their persons which they would resent furiously were they attempted by other dogs.
Presently the warm visage of Bumpus elongated, and his eyes opened uncommonly wide, as he stared at a particular spot in the ground; insomuch that Corrie burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.
"O Grampus! you'll kill me if you go on like that," said he; "I can't stand it,--indeed I can't. Sich a face! D'ye know what it's like?"
Jo expressed no desire to become enlightened on this point, but continued to gaze so earnestly that Corrie started up and exclaimed:
"A footprint, I declare!" shouted the boy, springing forward and examining the print, which was pretty clearly defined in a little patch of soft sand that lay on the bare rock. "Why, Jo! it's Poopy's. I'd know it anywhere, by the bigness of the little toe. How _can_ she have come up here?"
"I say, lad, hist!" said Bumpus, in a hoarse whisper; "here's another fut that don't belong to--what's her name,--Puppy, did ye say?"
"Why! it's Alice's," whispered the boy, his face becoming instantly grave, while an unwonted expression of anxiety crossed it; "and here's that of a savage beside it. He must have changed his intention; or, perhaps, he came this way to throw the people who were chasing them off the scent."
Corrie was right. Finding that he was hotly pursued, Keona had taken advantage of the first rocky ground he reached to diverge abruptly from the route he had hitherto followed in his flight; and, the further to confuse his pursuers, he had taken the almost exhausted child up in his arms and carried her a considerable distance, so that if his enemies should fall again on his track the absence of the little footprints might induce them to fancy they were following up a wrong scent.
In this he was so far successful; for the native settlers, as we have seen, soon gave up the chase, and returned with one of the child's shoes, which had fallen off unobserved by the savage.
But there was one of the pursuers who was far ahead of the others, and who was urged to continue the chase by the strongest of all motives,--love. Poor Kekupoopi had no sooner heard of the abduction of her young mistress than she had set off at the top of her speed to a well-known height in the mountains, whence, from a great distance, she could observe all that went on below. On the wings of affection she had flown, rather than walked, to this point of observation, and, to her delight, saw not only the pursuers, but the fugitives in the valley below. She kept her glowing eyes fixed on them, hastening from rock to rock and ridge to ridge, as intervening obstacles hid them from view, until she saw the stratagem, just referred to, practised by Keona. Then, feeling that she had no power of voice to let the pursuers know what had occurred, and seeing that they would certainly turn back on being baffled, she resolved to keep up the chase herself--trusting to accident to afford her an opportunity of rendering aid to Alice; or, rather, trusting to God to help her in her great difficulty; for the poor child had been well trained in the missionary's house, and love had been the teacher.