Ordering the young men to spread themselves over the ground, Whitewing went with Big Tim to search over the ridge of a neighbouring eminence.
“It is as I expected,” he said, coming to a sudden stand, and pointing to a faint mark on the turf. “Leetil Tim has taken the short cut to the Lopstick Hill, but I cannot guess the reason why.”
Big Tim was down on his knees examining the footprints attentively.
“Daddy’s futt, an’ no mistake,” he said, rising slowly. “I’d know the print of his heel among a thousand. He’s got a sort o’ swagger of his own, an’ puts it down with a crash, as if he wanted to leave his mark wherever he goes. I’ve often tried to cure him o’ that, but he’s incurable.”
“I have observed,” returned the chief, with, if possible, increased gravity, “that many sons are fond of trying to cure their fathers; also, that they never succeed.”
Big Tim looked quickly at his companion, and laughed.
“Well, well,” he said, “the daddies have a good go at us in youth. It’s but fair that we should have a turn at them afterwards.”
A sharp signal from one of the young Indians in the distance interrupted further converse, and drew them away to see what he had discovered. It was obvious enough—the trail of the Blackfoot Indians retiring into the mountains.
At first Big Tim’s heart sank, for this discovery, coupled with the prolonged absence of his father, suggested the fear that he had been waylaid and murdered. But a further examination led them to think—at least to hope—that the savages had not observed the hunter’s trail, owing to his having diverged at a point of the track further down, where the stony nature of the ground rendered trail-finding, as we have seen, rather difficult. Still, there was enough to fill the breasts of both son and friend with anxiety, and to induce them to push on thereafter swiftly and in silence.
Let us once again take flight ahead of them, and see what the object of their anxiety is doing.