"Have you seen any, and can you describe their paint?"
"I have fallen in with the signs of their being in the neighborhood,
but have seen none of 'em. I was down stream a mile or so, looking
to my traps, when I struck a fresh trail, crossing the corner of a
swamp, and moving northward. The man had not passed an hour; and
I know'd it for an Indian footstep, by the size of the foot, and
the intoe, even before I found a worn moccasin, which its owner
had dropped as useless. For that matter, I found the spot where
he halted to make a new one, which was only a few yards from the
place where he had dropped the old one."
"That doesn't look much like a red-skin on the war path!" returned
the other, shaking his head. "An exper'enced warrior, at least,
would have burned, or buried, or sunk in the river such signs of
his passage; and your trail is, quite likely, a peaceable trail.
But the moccasin may greatly relieve my mind, if you bethought you
of bringing it off. I've come here to meet a young chief myself;
and his course would be much in the direction you've mentioned.
The trail may have been his'n."
"Hurry Harry, you're well acquainted with this young man, I hope,
who has meetings with savages in a part of the country where he
has never been before?" demanded Hutter, in a tone and in a manner
that sufficiently indicated the motive of the question; these rude
beings seldom hesitating, on the score of delicacy, to betray their
feelings.
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