TRACKING THE ENEMY. 273 



but it mayn't be he's goin' so far. She'll think I'm 'spectin' 

 danger when there ain't none. 



" Wall, wall, I might as well be down thar. She won't be any 

 the worse for my bein' nigh her. Poor child, poor child ! And ef 

 thar's nobody about, why, I can come away again without her 

 knowin' it. It does a fellar good to know she is near, and maybe 

 it '11 turn up, as times go she may need me." 



That night Mike with his dog slept among some willows, 

 kindling his fire from the half-burned brands that had served 

 before to cook the food and dry the moccasins of the band he was 

 pursuing. Travelling, as they both were, by canoes, there were no 

 signs left save where landings had been made to cook or sleep, or 

 to carry over the little portages, the traversing of which so short- 

 ened the route between Indian Eiver and Jupiter Inlet. But it 

 was the knowledge of native character that guided the pursuer. 

 He could tell on his day's journey just where such a band, im- 

 pelled by Indian cunning, would land to conceal their fire. Had 

 they been running carelessly, landing where accident led them, 

 their course would have been more difficult of detection, but Mike 

 was tracking them mentally, more by reason than by a trail per- 

 ceptible to the eye, and as he ran his canoe to the beach, it would 

 sometimes strike on the very footprints of the savages, and the 

 hunter would give his satisfied ejaculation of " ha ! " and quietly 

 sit down to his meal without further examination. 



Mike travelled faster than his predecessors. When he carried 

 his canoe over the portage connecting Jupiter Inlet with the next 

 creek to the southward, and examined the tracks where they had 

 not been drifted over with the sand, he smiled, saying — " Gained 

 a day." Presently his dog dug up from the sand a broken paddle. 

 Mike patted the hound, and examining the paddle knew why 

 they had travelled so slowly that day ; and a little search showed 

 some shavings where a new one had been cut. His suspicions as 

 to the leadership of the band and the direction they were taking 

 had become confirmed, little by little, and he now baked his corn- 

 bread, and rolled himself to sleep on his Spartan couch, satisfied 

 to a certainty that his journey was not a needless one. 



A boat is usually sent by the government, at regular intervals, 



s 



