And profiting by
earlier mistakes, he did succeed in making far less noise than
before. In place of his former somewhat elephantine method of
progression he adopted a species of shuffle which had excellent
results, for it enabled him to brush twigs away instead of
stepping flatfootedly on them. The new method was slow, but it had
no other disadvantages.
Because it was slow, Mr Pickering was obliged to follow his prey
almost entirely by ear. It was easy at first, for they seemed to
be hurrying on regardless of noise. Then unexpectedly the sounds
of their passage ceased.
He halted. In his boyish way the first thing he thought was that
it was an ambush. He had a vision of that large man suspecting his
presence and lying in wait for him with a revolver. This was not a
comforting thought. Of course, if a man is going to fire a
revolver at you it makes little difference whether he is a giant
or a pygmy, but Mr Pickering was in no frame of mind for nice
reasoning. It was the thought of Bill's physique which kept him
standing there irresolute.
What would Chingachgook--assuming, for purposes of argument, that
any sane godfather could really have given a helpless child a name
like that--have done? He would, Mr Pickering considered, after
giving the matter his earnest attention, have made a _detour_
and outflanked the enemy.
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