close now, fer if we miss, mebbe I can't
hit one, because I'm not used to shootin' at sich small marks."

Wetzel's rare smile lighted up his dark face. Probably he could have
shot a fly off the horn of the bull, if one of the big flies or
bees, plainly visible as they swirled around the huge head, had
alighted there.

Joe slowly raised his rifle. He had covered the calf, and was about
to pull the trigger, when, with a sagacity far beyond his experience
as hunter, he whispered to Wetzel:

"If I fire they may run toward us."

"Nope; they'll run away," answered Wetzel, thinking the lad was as
keen as an Indian.

Joe quickly covered the calf again, and pulled the trigger.
Bellowing loud the big bull dashed off. The herd swung around toward
the west, and soon were galloping off with a lumbering roar. The
shaggy humps bobbed up and down like hot, angry waves on a
storm-blackened sea.

Upon going forward, Wetzel and Joe found the calf lying dead in the
grass.

"You might hev did better'n that," remarked the hunter, as he saw
where the bullet had struck. "You went a little too fer back, but
mebbe thet was 'cause the calf stepped as you shot."

Chapter XV.

So the days passed swiftly, dreamily, each one bringing Joe a keener
delight. In a single month he was as good a woodsman as many
pioneers who had passed years on the border, for he had the
advantage of a teacher whose woodcraft was incomparable. Besides, he
was naturally quick in learning, and with all his interest centered
upon forest lore, it was no wonder he assimilated much of Wetzel's
knowledge. He was ever willing to undertake anything whereby he
might learn. Often when they were miles away in the dense forest,
far from their cave, he asked Wetzel to let him try to lead the way
back to camp. And he never failed once, though many times he got off
a straight course, thereby missing the easy travelling.

Joe did wonderfully well, but he lacked, as nearly all white men do,
the subtler, intuitive forest-instinct, which makes the Indian as
much at home in the woods as in his teepee. Wetzel had this
developed to a high degree. It was born in him. Years of training,
years of passionate, unrelenting search for Indians, had given him a
knowledge of the wilds that was incomprehensible to white men, and
appalling to his red foes.

Joe saw how Wetzel used this ability, but what it really was baffled
him. He realized that words were not adequate to explain fully