"Now, what in the mischief is the feller doin' when he stoops low like that? If you asked me, I'd say he was smellin' of the tracks of the three men; but since when was a heathen Injun given a scent like a hound, tell me, Ned."
"If you watch closer, Jimmy," replied the other scout, "you'll see that each time he bends down he is watching some blade of grass spring back to place; or else a small root that has been pressed down under the foot of that giant righting itself again. He can read those signs like a book. They tell him accurately just how long ago the foot pressed that root or blade of grass down. And so he knows what time has elapsed since the enemy passed along here."
"Gee! it would take me a week to learn that sort of readin' signs," Jimmy confessed; and Teddy, who was close enough to catch all that passed, snickered as he muttered, as though talking to himself:
"A week? Just one little stretch of seven days? Huh! you mean a year, rather."
Winding in and out in this way, the party bore deeper into the woods. The trail led among the rocks that were now piled up on every hand. Ned, on hastily examining some of these he passed, was forced to admit that at least they bore all the "ear-marks" of containing copper. If the syndicate had engineered a big swindle, at least, they must be given credit for picking out a likely site for a mine.
But there was Tamasjo pointing ahead, and giving his young employer to understand that they had arrived at the end of the broad trail leading from the shore of Hudson Bay into this wild stretch of rocky territory.