iless quest for many days had been to kill the
frontier fiend. Now that it had been accomplished, he turned his
vengeance into its accustomed channel, and once more became the
ruthless Indian-slayer.

A fierce, tingling joy surged through him as he struck the
Delaware's trail. Wingenund had made little or no effort to conceal
his tracks; he had gone northwest, straight as a crow flies, toward
the Indian encampment. He had a start of sixty minutes, and it would
require six hours of rapid traveling to gain the Delaware town.

"Reckon he'll make fer home," muttered Wetzel, following the trail
with all possible speed.

The hunter's method of trailing an Indian was singular. Intuition
played as great a part as sight. He seemed always to divine his
victim's intention. Once on the trail he was as hard to shake off as
a bloodhound. Yet he did not, by any means, always stick to the
Indian's footsteps. With Wetzel the direction was of the greatest
importance.

For half a mile he closely followed the Delaware's plainly marked
trail. Then he stopped to take a quick survey of the forest before
him. He abruptly left the trail, and, breaking into a run, went
through the woods as fleetly and noiselessly as a deer, running for
a quarter of a mile, when he stopped to listen. All seemed well, for
he lowered his head, and walked slowly along, examining the moss and
leaves. Presently he came upon a little open space where the soil
was a sandy loam. He bent over, then rose quickly. He had come upon
the Indian's trail. Cautiously he moved forward, stopping every
moment to listen. In all the close pursuits of his maturer years he
had never been a victim of that most cunning of Indian tricks, an
ambush. He relied solely on his ear to learn if foes were close by.
The wild creatures of the forest were his informants. As soon as he
heard any change in their twittering, humming or playing--whichever
way they manifested their joy or fear of life--he became as hard to
see, as difficult to hear as a creeping snake.

The Delaware's trail led to a rocky ridge and there disappeared.
Wetzel made no effort to find the chief's footprints on the flinty
ground, but halted a moment and studied the ridge, the lay of the
land around, a ravine on one side, and a dark impenetrable forest on
the other. He was calculating his chances of finding the Delaware's
trail far on the other side. Indian woodcraft, subtle, wonderful as
it may be, is limited to each Ind