The Delaware’s trail led to a rocky ridge and there disappeared.  Wetzel made no effort to find the chief’s footprints on the flinty ground, but halted a moment and studied the ridge, the lay of the land around, a ravine on one side, and a dark impenetrable forest on the other.  He was calculating his chances of finding the Delaware’s trail far on the other side.  Indian woodcraft, subtle, wonderful as it may be, is limited to each Indian’s ability.  Savages, as well as other men, were born unequal.  One might leave a faint trail through the forest, while another could be readily traced, and a third, more cunning and skillful than his fellows, have flown under the shady trees, for all the trail he left.  But redmen followed the same methods of woodcraft from tradition, as Wetzel had learned after long years of study and experience.

And now, satisfied that he had divined the Delaware’s intention, he slipped down the bank of the ravine, and once more broke into a run.  He leaped lightly, sure-footed as a goat, from stone to stone, over fallen logs, and the brawling brook.  At every turn of the ravine, at every open place, he stopped to listen.

Arriving on the other side of the ridge, he left the ravine and passed along the edge of the rising ground.  He listened to the birds, and searched the grass and leaves.  He found not the slightest indication of a trail where he had expected to find one.  He retraced his steps patiently, carefully, scrutinizing every inch of the ground.  But it was all in vain.  Wingenund had begun to show his savage cunning.  In his warrior days for long years no chief could rival him.  His boast had always been that, when Wingenund sought to elude his pursuers, his trail faded among the moss and the ferns.

Wetzel, calm, patient, resourceful, deliberated a moment.  The Delaware had not crossed this rocky ridge.  He had been cunning enough to make his pursuer think such was his intention.  The hunter hurried to the eastern end of the ridge for no other reason than apparently that course was the one the savage had the least reason to take.  He advanced hurriedly because every moment was precious.  Not a crushed blade of grass, a brushed leaf, an overturned pebble nor a snapped twig did he find.  He saw that he was getting near to the side of the ridge where the Delaware’s trail had abruptly ended.  Ah! what was there?  A twisted bit of fern, with the drops of dew brushed off.  Bending beside the fern, Wetzel examined the grass; it was not crushed.  A small plant with triangular leaves of dark green, lay under the fern.  Breaking off one of these leaves, he exposed its lower side to the light.  The fine, silvery hair of fuzz that grew upon the leaf had been crushed.  Wetzel knew that an Indian could tread so softly as not to break the springy grass blades, but the under side of one of these leaves, if a man steps on it, always betrays his passage through the woods.  To keen eyes this leaf showed that