own trail, or to shape it so that even a bloodhound could not track him.
He crossed all the streams he could, wading long distances through the
water where the depth was too great to permit his footprints to be seen.
When he finally emerged, he often did so on the same side which he
entered, perhaps repeating his maneuver once or twice before leaving the
stream by the opposite bank.

This played havoc with Otto's garments, which were torn and injured
until it looked doubtful whether they would last him through his
journey. Sometimes, while walking where the water was only a little
above his knees, he would abruptly step into that which was six or eight
feet deep, but he always reached bottom.

During the first day, when the vigorous system of the fugitive demanded
food, and he saw the chance of bringing down a wild turkey which trotted
swiftly across his path, he refrained through fear that the report of
his gun would betray him. He ate a few berries that seemed to have lived
over from the preceding winter (the season being rather early for any
thing of the kind to have grown since), chewed some tender buds, and
lying down at night, thanked heaven he felt so well.

Reaching the bank of the river across which his friends had passed
several times, he felt the opportunity for which he longed had come.

With much labor, he succeeded in constructing a raft sufficiently
buoyant to float him without resting any part of his body in the water.
Pushing this out into the stream, he drifted fully three miles,
gradually working the support toward the further shore.

"Dere," he exclaimed, when he stepped out on land, "dey won't find my
tracks if dey don't look all summer."

This was the fact, so far as trailing the fugitive from the spot where
he was abandoned, but it so happened that the course of the raft down
stream carried him into the very section where his late captors were
hunting back and forth. The wonder was that he was not discovered, for
there must have been times when his enemies were on each side the river,
and he was floating directly between them--and that, too, when the sun
was shining.

He was so tired that he lay down beside a fallen tree and slept until
near nightfall. Even then he was aroused by the report of a gun so near
him that he started up and rushed off in such haste that he left his hat
behind him. Soon another rifle was discharged so close that he believed
he was surrounded by foes. He had missed