into the thicket and was gone before the Fox could get his heavier
body under speed at all.

Had the Rabbit bounded out as soon as he saw the Fox coming he might
have betrayed himself unnecessarily; had he gone straight away when
the Fox leaped for him he might have been caught in three or four
leaps, for the enemy was under full speed, but by biding his time he
had courted no danger, and when it did come he had played the only
possible offset, and "lives in the greenwood still."

The Fox had to seek his supper somewhere else, and Yan went to camp
happy in having learned another of the secrets of the woods.

XII

Indian Signs And Getting Lost

"What do you mean when you say Indian signs, Mr. Clark?"

"Pretty near anything that shows there's Injuns round: a moccasin
track, a smell of smoke, a twig bent, a village, one stone a-top of
another or a white settlement scalped and burned--they all are Injun
signs. They all mean something, and the Injuns read them an' make
them, too, jest as you would writing."

"You remember the other day you told us three smokes meant you were
coming back with scalps."

"Well, no; it don't har'ly mean that. It means 'Good news'--that is,
with some tribes. Different tribes uses 'em different."

"Well, what does one smoke mean?"

"As a rule just simply '_Camp is here_'"

"And two smokes?"

"Two smokes means '_Trouble_'--may mean, _'I am lost.'_"

"I'll remember that; _double for trouble_."

"Three means good news. _There's luck in odd numbers_."

"And what is four?"

"Well, it ain't har'ly ever used. If I seen four smokes in camp I'd
know _something big_ was on--maybe a Grand Council."

"Well, if you saw five smokes what would you think?"

"I'd think some blame fool was settin' the hull place a-blaze," Caleb
replied with the sniff end of a laugh.

"Just now you said one stone on another was a sign. What does it
mean?"

"Course I can't speak for all Injuns. Some has it for one thing an'
some for another, but usually in the West two stones or 'Buffalo
chips' settin' one on the other means 'This is the trail'; and a
little stone at the left of the two would mean 'Here we turned off to
the left'; and at the other side, 'Here we turned to the right.' Three
stones settin' one on top of another means, 'This is sure enough the
trail,' 'Special' or 'Particular' or 'Look out'; an' a pile of stones
just throwed together means 'We camped here 'cause some one was sick.'
T