The fleeting human instinct of Wetzel had given way to the habit of
years. His merciless quest for many days had been to kill the
frontier fiend. Now that it had been accomplished, he turned his
vengeance into its accustomed channel, and once more became the
ruthless Indian-slayer.
A fierce, tingling joy surged through him as he struck the
Delaware's trail. Wingenund had made little or no effort to conceal
his tracks; he had gone northwest, straight as a crow flies, toward
the Indian encampment. He had a start of sixty minutes, and it would
require six hours of rapid traveling to gain the Delaware town.
"Reckon he'll make fer home," muttered Wetzel, following the trail
with all possible speed.
The hunter's method of trailing an Indian was singular. Intuition
played as great a part as sight. He seemed always to divine his
victim's intention. Once on the trail he was as hard to shake off as
a bloodhound. Yet he did not, by any means, always stick to the
Indian's footsteps. With Wetzel the direction was of the greatest
importance.
For half a mile he closely followed the Delaware's plainly marked
trail. Then he stopped to take a quick survey of the forest before
him. He abruptly left the trail, and, breaking into a run, went
through the woods as fleetly and noiselessly as a deer, running for
a quarter of a mile, when he stopped to listen. All seemed well, for
he lowered his head, and walked slowly along, examining the moss and
leaves. Presently he came upon a little open space where the soil
was a sandy loam. He bent over, then rose quickly. He had come upon
the Indian's trail. Cautiously he moved forward, stopping every
moment to listen. In all the close pursuits of his maturer years he
had never been a victim of that most cunning of Indian tricks, an
ambush. He relied solely on his ear to learn if foes were close by.
The wild creatures of the forest were his informants. As soon as he
heard any change in their twittering, humming or playing--whichever
way they manifested their joy or fear of life--he became as hard to
see, as difficult to hear as a creeping snake.
The Delaware's trail led to a rocky ridge and there disappeared.
Wetzel made no effort to find the chief's footprints on the flinty
ground, but halted a moment and studied the ridge, the lay of the
land around, a ravine on one side, and a dark impenetrable forest on
the other. He was calculating his chances of finding the Delaware's
trail far on the other side. Indian woodcraft, subtle, wonderful as
it may be, is limited to each Indian's ability. Savages, as well as
other men, were born unequal. One might leave a faint trail through
the forest, while another could be readily traced, and a third, more
cunning and skillful than his fellows, have flown under the shady
trees, for all the trail he left. But redmen followed the same
methods of woodcraft from tradition, as Wetzel had learned after
long years of study and experience.
And now, satisfied that he had divined the Delaware's intention, he
slipped down the bank of the ravine, and once more broke into a run.
He leaped lightly, sure-footed as a goat, from stone to stone, over
fallen logs, and the brawling brook. At every turn of the ravine, at
every open place, he stopped to listen.
Arriving on the other side of the ridge, he left the ravine and
passed along the edge of the rising ground. He listened to the
birds, and searched the grass and leaves. He found not the slightest
indication of a trail where he had expected to find one. He retraced
his steps patiently, carefully, scrutinizing every inch of the
ground. But it was all in vain. Wingenund had begun to show his
savage cunning. In his warrior days for long years no chief could
rival him. His boast had always been that, when Wingenund sought to
elude his pursuers, his trail faded among the moss and the ferns.
Wetzel, calm, patient, resourceful, deliberated a moment. The
Delaware had not crossed this rocky ridge. He had been cunning
enough to make his pursuer think such was his intention. The hunter
hurried to the eastern end of the ridge for no other reason than
apparently that course was the one the savage had the least reason
to take. He advanced hurriedly because every moment was precious.
Not a crushed blade of grass, a brushed leaf, an overturned pebble
nor a snapped twig did he find. He saw that he was getting near to
the side of the ridge where the Delaware's trail had abruptly ended.
Ah! what was there? A twisted bit of fern, with the drops of dew
brushed off. Bending beside the fern, Wetzel examined the grass; it
was not crushed. A small plant with triangular leaves of dark green,
lay under the fern. Breaking off one of these leaves, he exposed its
lower side to the light. The fine, silvery hair of fuzz that grew
upon the leaf had been crushed. Wetzel knew that an Indian could
tread so softly as not to break the springy grass blades, but the
under side of one of these leaves, if a man steps on it, always
betrays his passage through the woods. To keen eyes this leaf showed
that it had been bruised by a soft moccasin. Wetzel had located the
trail, but was still ignorant of its direction. Slowly he traced the
shaken ferns and bruised leaves down over the side of the ridge, and
at last, near a stone, he found a moccasin-print in the moss. It
pointed east. The Delaware was traveling in exactly the opposite
direction to that which he should be going. He was, moreover,
exercising wonderful sagacity in hiding his trail. This, however,
did not trouble Wetzel, for if it took him a long time to find the
trail, certainly the Delaware had expended as much, or more, in
choosing hard ground, logs or rocks on which to tread.
Wetzel soon realized that his own cunning was matched. He trusted no
more to his intuitive knowledge, but stuck close to the trail, as a
hungry wolf holds to the scent of his quarry.
The Delaware trail led over logs, stones and hard-baked ground, up
stony ravines and over cliffs. The wily chief used all of his old
skill; he walked backward over moss and sand where his footprints
showed plainly; he leaped wide fissures in stony ravines, and then
jumped back again; he let himself down over ledges by branches; he
crossed creeks and gorges by swinging himself into trees and
climbing from one to another; he waded brooks where he found hard
bottom, and avoided swampy, soft ground.
With dogged persistence and tenacity of purpose Wetzel stuck to this
gradually fading trail. Every additional rod he was forced to go
more slowly, and take more time in order to find any sign of his
enemy's passage through the forests. One thing struck him forcibly.
Wingenund was gradually circling to the southwest, a course that
took him farther and farther from the Delaware encampment.
Slowly it dawned upon Wetzel that the chief could hardly have any
reason for taking this circling course save that of pride and savage
joy in misleading, in fooling the foe of the Delawares, in
deliberately showing Deathwind that there was one Indian who could
laugh at and lose him in the forests. To Wetzel this was bitter as
gall. To be led a wild goose chase! His fierce heart boiled with
fury. His dark, keen eyes sought the grass and moss with terrible
earnestness. Yet in spite of the anger that increased to the white
heat of passion, he became aware of some strange sensation creeping
upon him. He remembered that the Delawares had offered his life.
Slowly, like a shadow, Wetzel passed up and down the ridges, through
the brown and yellow aisles of the forest, over the babbling brooks,
out upon the golden-flecked fields--always close on the trail.
At last in an open part of the forest, where a fire had once swept
away the brush and smaller timber, Wetzel came upon the spot where
the Delaware's trail ended.
There in the soft, black ground was a moccasin-print. The forest was
not dense; there was plenty of light; no logs, stones or trees were
near, and yet over all that glade no further evidence of the
Indian's trail was visible.
It faded there as the great chief had boasted it would.
Wetzel searched the burnt ground; he crawled on his hands and knees;
again and again he went over the surroundings. The fact that one
moccasin-print pointed west and the other east, showed that the
Delaware had turned in his tracks, was the most baffling thing that
had ever crossed the hunter in all his wild wanderings.
For the first time in many years he had failed. He took his defeat
hard, because he had been successful for so long he thought himself
almost infallible, and because the failure lost him the opportunity
to kill his great foe. In his passion he cursed himself for being so
weak as to let the prayer of a woman turn him from his life's
purpose.
With bowed head and slow, dragging steps he made his way westward.
The land was strange to him, but he knew he was going toward
familiar ground. For a time he walked quietly, all the time the
fierce fever in his veins slowly abating. Calm he always was, except
when that unnatural lust for Indians' blood overcame him.
On the summit of a high ridge he looked around to ascertain his
bearings. He was surprised to find he had traveled in a circle. A
mile or so below him arose the great oak tree which he recognized as
the landmark of Beautiful Spring. He found himself standing on the
hill, under the very dead tree to which he had directed Girty's
attention a few hours previous.
With the idea that he would return to the spring to scalp the dead
Indians, he went directly toward the big oak tree. Once out of the
forest a wide plain lay between him and the wooded knoll which
marked the glade of Beautiful Spring. He crossed this stretch of
verdant meadow-land, and entered the copse.
Suddenly he halted. His keen sense of the usual harmony of the
forest, with its innumerable quiet sounds, had received a severe
shock. He sank into the tall weeds and listened. Then he crawled a
little farther. Doubt became certainty. A single note of an oriole
warned him, and it needed not the quick notes of a catbird to tell
him that near at hand, somewhere, was human life.
Once more Wetzel became a tiger. The hot blood leaped from his
heart, firing all his veins and nerves. But calmly noiseless,
certain, cold, deadly as a snake he began the familiar crawling
method of stalking his game.
On, on under the briars and thickets, across the hollows full of
yellow leaves, up over stony patches of ground to the fern-covered
cliff overhanging the glade he glided--lithe, sinuous, a tiger in
movement and in heart.
He parted the long, graceful ferns and gazed with glittering eyes
down into the beautiful glade.
He saw not the shining spring nor the purple moss, nor the ghastly
white bones--all that the buzzards had left of the dead--nor
anything, save a solitary Indian standing erect in the glade.
There, within range of his rifle, was his great Indian foe,
Wingenund.
Wetzel sank back into the ferns to still the furious exultations
which almost consumed him during the moment when he marked his
victim. He lay there breathing hard, gripping tightly his rifle,
slowly mastering the passion that alone of all things might render
his aim futile.
For him it was the third great moment of his life, the last of three
moments in which the Indian's life had belonged to him. Once before
he had seen that dark, powerful face over the sights of his rifle,
and he could not shoot because his one shot must be for another.
Again had that lofty, haughty figure stood before him, calm,
disdainful, arrogant, and he yielded to a woman's prayer.
The Delaware's life was his to take, and he swore he would have it!
He trembled in the ecstasy of his triumphant passion; his great
muscles rippled and quivered, for the moment was entirely beyond his
control. Then his passion calmed. Such power for vengeance had he
that he could almost still the very beats of his heart to make sure
and deadly his fatal aim. Slowly he raised himself; his eyes of cold
fire glittered; slowly he raised the black rifle.
Wingenund stood erect in his old, grand pose, with folded arms, but
his eyes, instead of being fixed on the distant hills, were lowered
to the ground.
An Indian girl, cold as marble, lay at his feet. Her garments were
wet, and clung to her slender form. Her sad face was frozen into an
eternal rigidity.
By her side was a newly dug grave.
The bead on the front sight of the rifle had hardly covered the
chief's dark face when Wetzel's eye took in these other details. He
had been so absorbed in his purpose that he did not dream of the
Delaware's reason for returning to the Beautiful Spring.
Slowly Wetzel's forefinger stiffened; slowly he lowered the black
rifle.
Wingenund had returned to bury Whispering Winds.
Wetzel's teeth clenched, an awful struggle tore his heart. Slowly
the rifle rose, wavered and fell. It rose again, wavered and fell.
Something terrible was wrong with him; something awful was awakening
in his soul.
Wingenund had not made a fool of him. The Delaware had led him a
long chase, had given him the slip in the forest, not to boast of
it, but to hurry back to give his daughter Christian burial.
Wingenund was a Christian!
Had he not been, once having cast his daughter from him, he would
never have looked upon her face again.
Wingenund was true to his race, but he was a Christian.
Suddenly Wetzel's terrible temptation, his heart-racking struggle
ceased. He lowered the long, black rifle. He took one last look at
the chieftain's dark, powerful face.
Then the Avenger fled like a shadow through the forest.