"Where did he go?" asked the scout.
"I don't know," answered Abner. "His ways of appearing and disappearing are quite beyond my comprehension."
"I'll catch him," replied Uncle Dan. "I know the tricks of the fox and mink, and others, and I'll set a trap, which will get him yet."
"Will you?" cried a mocking voice some distance up the path, and looking up, they saw the mysterious black, standing by the trunk of a tree his arms folded on his breast, a look of defiance in his gleaming eyes. Almost simultaneously with the discovery came the crack of Uncle Dan's rifle. When the smoke had cleared away the black had again disappeared.
The place all about was searched, but no trace of him could be found.
"I believe he is the devil," said Uncle Dan. "I never missed a squirrel's head at that distance in my life."
"He is certainly a very extraordinary person," said Abner.
CHAPTER XXI. CRAZY JOE'S MISTAKE.
Uncle Dan had long prided himself on his skill in woodcraft, and, to be thus outwitted in his old days, was more than he could endure. He plunged recklessly into the brush, which was so dense that no object could be seen a dozen feet away. He ran several narrow risks, coming two or three times almost into the rebel lines.