all their
cunning in hiding their footprints and breaking their trail. Covering
their tracks with leaves; walking at right angles occasionally from the
main path; crossing brooks by walking in them for some time, and leaving
them at a point far from where they entered: all this had been practised,
and I presume that the fathers never would have got on the track if the
girls had not been as cunning as their captors. After wandering about for
some time, they came at length to a brook, and waded along it for a great
while in search of footprints. They looked faithfully far up and down the
stream, for they knew the Indian stratagem. Presently Calloway leaped up
for joy. "God bless my child!" cried he; "they have gone this way." He
had picked up a little piece of riband which one of his daughters had
dropped, purposely to mark the trail. Now they were on the track.
Travelling on as rapidly as they could, from time to time they picked up
shreds of handkerchiefs, or fragments of their dresses, that the girls
had scattered by the way. Before the next day ended, they were still more
clearly on the track. They reached a soft, muddy piece of ground, and
found all the footprints of the party; they were now able to tell the
number of the Indians. The close of the next day brought them still
nearer to the objects of their search. Night had set in; they were still
wandering on, when, upon reaching a small hill, they saw a camp-fire in
the distance. They were now delighted; this surely was the party that had
captured the girls. Everything was left to the management of Boone. He
brought his men as near the fire as he dared approach, and sheltered them
from observation under the brow of a hill. Calloway and another man were
then selected from the group; the rest were told that they might go to
sleep: they were, however, to sleep on their arms, ready to start
instantly at a given signal. Calloway was to go with Boone; the other man
was stationed on the top of the hill, to give the alarm, if necessary.
The two parents now crept cautiously onward to a covert of bushes not far
from the fire. Looking through, they saw fifteen or twenty Indians fast
asleep in the camp; but where were the girls? Crawling to another spot,
they pushed the bushes cautiously aside, and, to their great joy, saw in
another camp the daughters sleeping in each other's arms. Two Indians
with their tomahawks guarded this camp. One seemed to be asleep. They
crept gently ar