this
great art. Its possession required a marvelously keen vision, an eye
perfectly familiar with every creature, tree, rock, shrub and thing
belonging in the forest; an eye so quick in flight as to detect
instantly the slightest change in nature, or anything unnatural to
that environment. The hearing must be delicate, like that of a deer,
and the finer it is, the keener will be the woodsman. Lastly, there
is the feeling that prompts the old hunter to say: "No game to-day."
It is something in him that speaks when, as he sees a night-hawk
circling low near the ground, he says: "A storm to-morrow." It is
what makes an Indian at home in any wilderness. The clouds may hide
the guiding star; the northing may be lost; there may be no moss on
the trees, or difference in their bark; the ridges may be flat or
lost altogether, and there may be no water-courses; yet the Indian
brave always goes for his teepee, straight as a crow flies. It was
this voice which rightly bade Wetzel, when he was baffled by an
Indian's trail fading among the rocks, to cross, or circle, or
advance in the direction taken by his wily foe.

Joe had practiced trailing deer and other hoofed game, until he was
true as a hound. Then he began to perfect himself in the art of
following a human being through the forest. Except a few old Indian
trails, which the rain had half obliterated, he had no tracks to
discover save Wetzel's, and these were as hard to find as the airy
course of a grosbeak. On soft ground or marshy grass, which Wetzel
avoided where he could, he left a faint trail, but on a hard
surface, for all the traces he left, he might as well not have gone
over the ground at all.

Joe's persistence stood him in good stead; he hung on, and the more
he failed, the harder he tried. Often he would slip out of the cave
after Wetzel had gone, and try to find which way he had taken. In
brief, the lad became a fine marksman, a good hunter, and a close,
persevering student of the wilderness. He loved the woods, and all
they contained. He learned the habits of the wild creatures. Each
deer, each squirrel, each grouse that he killed, taught him some
lesson.

He was always up with the lark to watch the sun rise red and grand
over the eastern hills, and chase away the white mist from the
valleys. Even if he was not hunting, or roaming the woods, if it was
necessary for him to lie low in camp awaiting Wetzel's return, he
was always content. Many hours he idled a