The next day at noon he returned to Dick after a more than usually long excursion, carrying some object.  He laid it before his companion.  The object proved to be a flat stone; and on the flat stone was the wet print of a moccasin.

“We’re followed,” he said, briefly.

Dick seized the stone and examined it closely.

“It’s too blurred,” he said, at last; “I can’t make it out.  But th’ man who made that track wasn’t far off.  Couldn’t you make trail of him?  He must have been between you an’ me when you found this rock.”

“No,” Sam demurred, “he wasn’t.  This moccasin was pointed down stream.  He heard me, and went right on down with th’ current.  He’s sticking to the water all the way so as to leave no trail.”

“No use trying to follow an Injun who knows you’re after him,” agreed Dick.

“It’s that Chippewa, of course,” proffered Sam.  “I always was doubtful of him.  Now he’s followin’ us to see what we’re up to.  Then, he ain’t any too friendly to you, Dick, ‘count of that scrap and th’ girl.  But I don’t think that’s what he’s up to—­not yet, at least.  I believe he’s some sort of friend or kin of that Jingoss, an’ he wants to make sure that we’re after him.”

“Why don’t he just ambush us, then, an’ be done with it?” asked Dick.

“Two to one,” surmised Bolton, laconically.  “He’s only got a trade-gun—­one shot.  But more likely he thinks it ain’t going to do him much good to lay us out.  More men would be sent.  If th’ Company’s really after Jingoss, the only safe thing for him is a warning.  But his friend don’t want to get him out of th’ country on a false alarm.”

“That’s so,” said Dick.

They talked over the situation, and what was best to be done.

“He don’t know yet that we’ve discovered him,” submitted Sam.  “My scouting around looked like huntin’, and he couldn’t a seen me pick up that stone.  We better not try to catch him till we can make sure.  He’s got to camp somewheres.  We’ll wait till night.  Of course he’ll get away from th’ stream, and he’ll cover his trail.  Still, they’s a moon.  I don’t believe anybody could do it but you, Dick.  If you don’t make her, why there ain’t nothing lost.  We’ll just have to camp down here an’ go to trapping until he gets sick of hanging around.”

So it was agreed.  Dick, under stress of danger, was now a changed man.  What he lacked in experience and the power to synthesise, he more than made up in the perfection of his senses and a certain natural instinct of the woods.  He was a better trailer than Sam, his eyesight was keener, his hearing more acute, his sense of smell finer, his every nerve alive and tingling in vibrant unison with the life about him.  Where Sam laboriously arrived by the aid of his forty years’ knowledge, the younger man leaped by the swift indirection of an Indian—­or a woman.  Had he only possessed, as did Bolton, a keen brain as well as keen higher instincts, he would have been marvellous.