wants of the body being
satisfied, he began to plan anew for the junction with his comrades. The
great cold would not last much longer. A temperature twenty or thirty
degrees below zero never endured more than a few days. Like as not, it
would break up in a warm rain, to be followed by moderate weather, and
then he could hunt the trail of the four in comfort.

His pack was much heavier when he started and the icy coating of the
earth was still slippery, but he made excellent progress, and he was
able to fix in his mind the direction in which the marks on the trees
had pointed. He knew that he must turn back somewhat toward the north in
order to reach that line, and such a change in his course would increase
the danger from the Indians, but he did not hesitate. He made the angle
at once, and then he began to observe the trees with all the patience
and minuteness of which a forest runner in such a crisis was capable.

It was almost dusk when he found the sign, four slashes of a tomahawk,
eye-high on the stalwart trunk of an oak, and a hundred yards farther on
a similar sign. He traced them fully a mile, and then as the night shut
down, dark and impenetrable, he was compelled to stop. He dared another
fire, the cold was so intense, and began his journey again the next
morning over the ice.

The rise in the temperature that he had expected did not occur, nor were
there any signs of a change. Evidently the great cold had come to stay
much longer than usual, and, while it hindered his own journey, it also
hindered possible pursuit by the Indians, of whom he saw no traces
anywhere until the third day after he had killed the bear. Then he
observed a great smoke in the south, and he approached near enough to
discover that it was an Indian village, probably Shawnees. It seemed to
be snowed up for the winter, holed up like a bear, and, anticipating no
danger from it, he continued his leisurely hunt eastward.

He lost the traces for a whole day, but recovered them the next morning,
and now they were much fresher. Sap, not yet dead in some of the trees,
had oozed but lately into the cuts, and his heart beat very hard. His
comrades could not be far away. He might reach them the next day or the
day after, and now he was actuated by a curious motive, and yet it was
not curious, when his character is considered.

He built a fire by the side of one of the pools, with which the forest
was filled. Breaking the ice and daring the fierce