water, the traps set, snares laid. As long as these means sufficed for a
food supply, the ammunition would be saved. Wet clothes were hung at a
respectful distance from the blaze.

Sam was up and down all night, uncomfortable, indefinitely groping for
the influence that unsettled his peace of mind. The ghost shadows in the
pines; the pattering of mysterious feet; the cries, loud and distant, or
faint and near; the whisperings, whistlings, sighings, or crashes; all
the thousand ethereal essences of day-time noises that go to make up the
Night and her silences--these he knew. What he did not know, could not
understand, was within himself. What he sought was that thing in Nature
which should correspond.

The next day at noon he returned to Dick after a more than usually long
excursion, carrying some object. He laid it before his companion. The
object proved to be a flat stone; and on the flat stone was the wet
print of a moccasin.

"We're followed," he said, briefly.

Dick seized the stone and examined it closely.

"It's too blurred," he said, at last; "I can't make it out. But th' man
who made that track wasn't far off. Couldn't you make trail of him? He
must have been between you an' me when you found this rock."

"No," Sam demurred, "he wasn't. This moccasin was pointed down stream.
He heard me, and went right on down with th' current. He's sticking to
the water all the way so as to leave no trail."