"They are hunting for the trail, Jerry, I suppose?"
"Ay, lad. Harry struck on a good place when he crossed where he did, for you see the rock here is as smooth as the top of a table, and the wind has swept it as clean of dust as if it had been done by an eastern woman's broom. If the horses had been shod there would have been scratches on the rock that would have been enough for the dullest Indian to follow, but an unshod horse leaves no mark on ground like this. I expect the red-skins who followed them were just as much puzzled as the chief is. There ain't no saying whether they crossed and went straight on, or whether they never crossed at all or kept in the stream either up or down."
It was half an hour before the two Indians had concluded their examination of the ground.
"Well, chief, what do you make of it?" Jerry asked when they had spoken a few words together.
"Hunting Dog has good eyes," the chief said. "The white men went forward, the red men could not find the trail, and thought that they had kept in the river, so they went up to search for them. Come, let us go forward."
The miner and Tom mounted their horses, but the Indians led theirs forward some three hundred yards. Then Hunting Dog pointed down, and the chief stooped low and examined the spot.
"What is it, chief?" Jerry asked; and he and Tom both got off and knelt down. They could see nothing whatever.
"That is it," Leaping Horse said, and pointed to a piece of rock projecting half an inch above the flat.
"I am darned if I can see anything."
"There is a tiny hair there," Tom said, putting his face within a few inches of the ground. "It might be a cat's hair; it is about the length, but much thicker. It is brown."