Here I should have been in despair for the lack of any intelligible hint
to point the way; and I think not even Jennifer, with all his woodcraft,
could have read the record of the onfall as Yeates and the Catawba did.
But for all the overlapping tangle of moccasin and hoof prints neither
of these men of the forest was at fault, though ten minutes later even
their skill must have been baffled, inasmuch as the first few spitting
raindrops were pattering in the tree-tops when we came upon the ground.

"That's jest about what I was most afeard of," said the borderer, with a
hasty glance skyward. "Down on your hunkers, Chief, and help me read
this sign afore the good Lord takes to sending His rain on the jest and
the unjest," and therewith these two fell to quartering all the ground
like trained dogs nosing for a scent.

We stood aside and watched them, Richard and I, realizing that we were
of small account and should be until, perchance, it should come to the
laying on of hearty blows. After the closest scrutiny, which took
account of every broken twig and trampled blade of grass, this prolonged
until the rain was falling smartly to wash out all the foot-prints in
the dusty road, Yeates and the Indian gave over and came to join us
under the sheltering branches of an oak.

"'Tis a mighty cur'is sign; most mighty cur'is," quoth the hunter,
slinging the rain-drops from his fur cap and emptying the pan of his
rifle, not upon the ground, as a soldier would, but saving every
precious grain. "Ez I allow, I never heerd tell of any Injuns a-doing
that-away afore; have you, Chief? hey?"

The Catawba's negative was his guttural "Wah," and Ephraim Yeates,
having carefully restored the final grain of the priming to his