“Oh! to be sure, I understand all that,” return the other; “but, altogether it’s less than one chance in ten of its happening; I think you might have said twenty, while you were about it. But, see, Pat has halted. I hope he hasn’t lost the trail. That would finish us, I’m afraid.”
Pat turned to the boys, and they could see a quizzical gleam in his blue eyes. Bob felt sure the genial Irish trapper must have heard the complaining words of Sandy, and was in the humor to take them with at least a grain of allowance. He understood the nature of the lad.
“Sure, they arre thryin’ their level best to pull the wool over the eyes av anny wan that undertakes to follow,” Pat was saying.
“In what way, Pat?” asked Bob, immediately understanding that the trapper had been reading the signs closely.
“By some av the oldest thricks a sly fox iver practised. Av ye look here ye may say where they jumped on this same fallen tree, and walked along the trunk a good ways. Go as ye plaze, I defy yees to diskiver where the sarpints lift that same tree trunk. But bliss ye, ’tis as plain as the nose on me face; and nobody’d have the laste throuble about saing that. Come wid me, now, and be afther lookin’ at the way they jumped from the log into the bush beyant. Notice how the same is crushed down in the wan spot. ’Tis there they landed, troth; and from that point we must now take up the thrail afresh.”
It proved to be just as Pat said. Among the bushes they easily detected the now well-known tracks of the two French trappers. They had undoubtedly run along the tree trunk, and, at the most favorable part, made a flying leap so as to land at some little distance away, and in the midst of a thicket, hoping to thus throw any possible pursuer off the trail. But the trick was so palpable and so ancient, that it is doubtful whether even Sandy himself would have long been held in check.
Frontier lads early learned a multitude of things connected with trailing that had to be known in order to give them equal advantages with the cunning Indian, or the wise four-footed denizens of the woods. They understood the nature of the animal that made certain tracks, whither he was bound at the time, whether toward home or in search of his prey; just how he limped with one of his legs that had likely been injured at some time; how he crouched in the snow, perhaps waiting until his intended quarry came within reach, and then sprang—to fall short, because the imprint of his paws lay in plain view and those made by the feet of the escaping creature were just beyond. In many ways they could read the story by means of the telltale tracks. An education may not always mean ability to talk in Latin, or read scientific works; both of which would be very poor accomplishments when out in the great wilderness.
So Pat was able to follow the Frenchmen, no matter how many times they resorted to tricks of this sort. In the first place he had done similar things himself on many occasions, and was therefore familiar with them all; and then again, Pat was on the constant lookout for trickery, and the instant he lost sight of the trail, his first act was to look around and decide what he would probably have done, had he been seeking to escape under the same circumstances.
“It’s already getting a little dim; don’t you think, Bob?” asked Sandy, after they had been moving along in this fashion for considerably more than an hour.
“I’m afraid that’s so, Sandy,” returned the other.