He remained close hid for some little time, then peeped cautiously out. An intervening thicket obscured his view. Gently stepping, he crept to the thicket and peered through.
Before him was one of those numerous small glades with which the forest abounded. This glade was bare, but he was certain he heard a footstep, and in the present unsettled condition of things he was wary about venturing out in full sight. However, as he forced his way through the thicket he saw that on all sides of the glade the surrounding trees were somewhat diminutive in size—being for the most part a young growth of cottonwoods. They were too small to afford protection to any man, and beginning to lose his slight alarm, he stepped boldly out, still on the trail.
No one was in sight. The surrounding forest was devoid of human beings. He went up to a large log lying in the open space. It was decayed, and Walter’s trail passed directly over it. In fact he had stepped upon it, as his boot-mark was plainly visible in the soft, yielding punk. But as he noticed this, another object caught his attention.
It was another and different footmark, and he could see it had no heel, and the edges were not sharply defined; he knew at once it was the track of a moccasin.
“Hullo! Injuns?” he inquired, off his guard. “It can’t be—there are none within sixty miles. But, by thunder! ef I don’t b’lieve it is the track of one.”
Interested, he looked searchingly around for some further evidence, but to his extreme surprise he found none—it was a solitary footprint. It pointed at right angles to the trail he was pursuing, and he judged that as the surrounding ground was dry and rather hard, the owner must have passed by without leaving any other trail.
“Well—no matter!” he said to himself. “I’m on Walter’s trail—I mustn’t leave it. But, by thunder! I’d like to know where this one leads to.”
He gave a final look around, then bending again, went on, wondering. Now the ground was rather hard, but as he was on a “boot-trail,” he found no difficulty in keeping it.
Right ahead the dense thickets and soft ground came again. The moment he “struck” the latter, he started back at seeing he was now pursuing a double trail, the second being that of a moccasin; some one was trailing Walter ahead of him!
He noticed it was the same mark as the one on the log—at least it corresponded to it in size and shape. He pushed on a few paces, to see how far it continued, and if the second person was really on the track of Walter. He was, he found after going a small distance. Sometimes the moccasin overtopped the boot, as if the unknown was not desirous of keeping the trail for further use, and for every five steps of Walter, there were only two moccasin-marks; the fellow was evidently going at a smart pace.