He was the best trailer in the Comanche village, and had been aptly named the Starved Wolf, for that beast will keep on the trail of its prey for days. It is not by its speed that a wolf tires out its prey, but by its pertinacity in keeping to the trail.
Starved Wolf rode up to where the chief was, and throwing himself from his horse he bent down and examined the trail.
The keen-eyed Indian saw marks that he could distinguish anywhere, and with a yell he sprung upon his horse again.
He had noted the general direction in which the trail ran, and it would be easier for him to follow it now.
Barry and the young hunter had not been skilled enough in woodcraft to make a detour, as any old trapper would have done.
Bending over his horse’s neck, the Starved Wolf gave the animal a kick that sent him forward, and then the trailing began.
To the Comanche trailer the marks upon the ground were plain enough, while to an amateur they would have been nearly invisible.
The Indians went forward at a rapid pace, and they were not long in reaching the trees which grew on the bank of the river.
The whites had crossed here and the Indians lost nearly half an hour in finding it again on the other shore.
The four whites had gone up-stream and emerged from the water in a rocky place. Had all of them been old hunters, such care would have been taken to keep from leaving a trail that the Comanches, sharp though they were, would never have found it; but only one was a hunter, and the others, despite their caution, could not help leaving some marks, which the Indians at length came upon. Red Buffalo began to despair of ever catching up to the pale-faces, for they had at least six hours the start of him and his warriors. He did not know that something had happened which, though unlucky to the four men, was favorable to him.