The Catawba Trail! There was war between the Catawbas and the Pennsylvania Indians. The fierce Catawbas lived in the south, near the Cherokees. They were not many, but they sent warriors from South Carolina up through Virginia and Maryland into Ohio, Pennsylvania, and clear into New York to attack the Shawnees, the Wyandots, the Delawares and the Iroquois.
This much Robert the Hunter knew. Evidently Catawbas had passed here. He waited while Aroas and White Thunder, speaking low, discussed matters.
“Catawba moccasins. I think not many,” said Aroas.
“They stepped each in the other’s track, but the tracks are not deep,” White Thunder agreed. “The leaves and twigs are still flat; the break in this piece of rotten wood is fresh. The Catawba passed an hour ago.”
“Wah!” said Aroas. “That is good. Come.”
He leaped over the trail; White Thunder leaped; and the Hunter, without asking why that was done, also leaped. Now Aroas again led through the forest, travelling rapidly so that Robert, at the end of the single file, was kept at a little trot.
All the afternoon they hurried, hurried, without speaking, through the dense forest, into ravines and out, up hill and down, until at dusk Silver Heels halted, with hand raised. He went forward alone, and bent to examine the ground. He came back.
“We are ahead,” he said.
“The trail is empty?”
“Yes.”