"I wish it wasn't night," said Jack. "I would track him! And I will as it is. Have you a lantern?"
"Yes—I'll go with you! Shall we take the mare and one-horse wagon?"
"If you like. But, Rufe, if you go with me, you'll have to travel all night. I am on the war trail!"
"I'm with you!" said Rufe; and he gave an Indian war-whoop.
Mr. Betterson, coming up, approved of this resolution. "And, boys," he said, "if you should lay hands on Radcliff, you may as well bring him back with you. We'll try to have a more satisfactory settlement with him this time."
Jack left his friends to harness the mare to the wagon, and went on alone, with Lion and the lantern, up through the woods.
For a while he had no trouble in following the fresh marks of hoofs and wheels over the wet ground. But when he reached the prairie, an unforeseen difficulty appeared. The rain had not extended so far, and the tracks were not easily distinguished.
It was nearly dark when Rufe, following in the wagon, emerged from the woods. Lonesome and gloomy stretched the great prairie before him, under a sky of flying clouds. The insects of the autumn night filled the air with their shrill, melancholy notes. An owl hooted in the forest; a pair of whippoorwills were vociferating somewhere in the thickets; and far off on the prairie the wolves howled. Now and then a rift of dark blue sky and a few wildly hurrying stars were visible through the flocking clouds. No other light, or sign of life, until Rufe descried far before him in the darkness a waving, ruddy gleam, and knew it was the ray from the lantern swinging in Jack's hand.
Driving on as fast as the mare's somewhat decrepit paces would allow, he found Jack waiting for him at a point where the road divided, one branch taking a northerly direction, the other trending easterly, toward the great road to Chicago.
"Here's a puzzle," said Jack, as Rufe drove up. "I've tracked the fellow as far as here, notwithstanding he has tried the trick of driving off on the prairie in two or three places. But here, instead of taking the direct road to Chicago, as we supposed, he has taken this by-road, if my eyes are good for anything. Lion says I am right; for I believe I've made him understand we are hunting Snowfoot."