Chapter Twenty Two.
A Circuitous Transaction.
Such were my reflections as I journeyed on—suggested by the sad tale to which I had been listening.
As if to confirm their correctness, an incident at that moment occurred exactly to the point.
We had not ridden far along the path, when we came upon the tracks of cattle. Some twenty head must have passed over the ground going in the same direction as ourselves—towards the Indian “Reserve.”
The tracks were fresh—almost quite fresh. I was tracker enough to know that they must have passed within the hour. Though cloistered so long within college walls, I had not forgotten all the forest craft taught me by young Powell.
The circumstance of thus coming upon a cattle-trail, fresh or old, would have made no impression upon me. There was nothing remarkable about it. Some Indian herdsmen had been driving home their flock; and that the drivers were Indians, I could perceive by the moccasin prints in the mud. It is true, some frontiersmen wear the moccasin; but these were not the foot-prints of white men. The turned-in toes, (Note 1) the high instep, other trifling signs which, from early training, I knew how to translate, proved that the tracks were Indian.
So were they agreed my groom, and Jake was no “slouch” in the ways of the woods. He had all his life been a keen ’coon-hunter—a trapper of the swamp-hare, the “possum,” and the “gobbler.” Moreover, he had been my companion upon many a deer-hunt—many a chase after the grey fox, and the rufous “cat.” During my absence he had added greatly to his experiences. He had succeeded his former rival in the post of woodman, which brought him daily in contact with the denizens of the forest, and constant observation of their habits had increased his skill.
It is a mistake to suppose that the negro brain is incapable of that acute reasoning which constitutes a cunning hunter. I have known black men who could read “sign” and lift a trail with as much intuitive quickness as either red or white. Black Jake could have done it.