"I haven't seen her lately, an' allow she'd left me word if she learned anythin'."
"Wal, mebbe it's as well you hain't seen so much of her." In silence they traveled and, arriving at the edge of the meadow, were about to mount two of the horses, when Wetzel said in a sharp tone:
"Look!"
He pointed to a small, well-defined moccasin track in the black earth on the margin of a rill.
"Lew, it's a woman's, sure's you're born," declared Jonathan.
Wetzel knelt and closely examined the footprint; "Yes, a woman's, an' no Injun."
"What?" Jonathan exclaimed, as he knelt to scrutinize the imprint.
"This ain't half a day old," added Wetzel. "An' not a redskin's moccasin near. What d'you reckon?"
"A white girl, alone," replied Jonathan as he followed the trail a short distance along the brook. "See, she's makin' upland. Wetzel, these tracks could hardly be my sister's, an' there's only one other girl on the border whose feet will match 'em! Helen Sheppard has passed here, on her way up the mountain to find you or me."
"I like your reckonin'."