a knoll he entered a glade where the trees grew farther
apart and the underbrush was only knee high. The black soil showed
that the tract of land had been burned over. On the banks of a
babbling brook which wound its way through this open space, the
hunter found tracks which brought an exclamation from him. Clearly
defined in the soft earth was the impress of a white man's moccasin.
The footprints of an Indian toe inward. Those of a white man are
just the opposite. A little farther on Wetzel came to a slight
crushing of the moss, where he concluded some heavy body had fallen.
As he had seen the tracks of a buck and doe all the way down the
brook he thought it probable one of them had been shot by the white
hunter. He found a pool of blood surrounded by moccasin prints; and
from that spot the trail led straight toward the west, showing that
for some reason the Indians had changed their direction.

This new move puzzled the hunter, and he leaned against the trunk of
a tree, while he revolved in his mind the reasons for this abrupt
departure--for such he believed it. The trail he had followed for
miles was the devious trail of hunting Indians, stealing slowly and
stealthily along watching for their prey, whether it be man or
beast. The trail toward the west was straight as the crow flies; the
moccasin prints that indented the soil were wide apart, and to an
inexperienced eye looked like the track of one Indian. To Wetzel
this indicated that the Indians had all stepped in the tracks of a
leader.

As was usually his way, Wetzel decided quickly. He had calculated
that there were eight Indians in all, not counting the chief whom he
had shot. This party of Indians had either killed or captured the
white man who had been hunting. Wetzel believed that a part of the
Indians would push on with all possible speed, leaving some of their
number to ambush the trail or double back on it to see if they were
pursued.

An hour of patient waiting, in which he never moved from his
position, proved the wisdom of his judgment. Suddenly, away at the
other end of the grove, he caught a flash of brown, of a living,
moving something, like the flitting of a bird behind a tree. Was it
a bird or a squirrel? Then again he saw it, almost lost in the shade
of the forest. Several minutes passed, in which Wetzel never moved
and hardly breathed. The shadow had disappeared behind a tree. He
fixed his keen eyes on that tree and presently a dark object g