It was long before sunset when the old war-chief of the Queres, after having thoroughly examined the spot where the interview between Shotaye and the Tehua Indian took place, began to follow on the tracks of the latter.  He was undertaking a difficult, an extremely dangerous task.  It is not easy for a man well provided with weapons to pursue an armed Indian, but to attempt it unarmed is foolhardiness.  The Indian is most dangerous when retreating, for then he enjoys the best opportunities to display his main tactics in warfare, which are hiding and patient lurking.  He has every opportunity to prepare his favourite ambush, and woe unto him who runs after an Indian on the retreat, unless the pursuer is thoroughly prepared and well acquainted with the war-tricks of the redman.  The annals of western warfare give sad evidence of the disastrous results.  The mountaineers among the Indian tribes are those who are best skilled in the murderous hide-and-seek game.  Indians of the plains have less occasion to cultivate it.

Topanashka Tihua was aware that if he followed the Tehua he was risking his own life.  But it was not the first time he had attempted such dangerous undertakings, and so far he had never failed.  With the configuration of the ground and the landmarks in vegetation and scenery he was far better acquainted than the Tehua.  Furthermore, he enjoyed the material advantage that the latter could not have noticed him.  Everything depended on ascertaining unseen as much as possible about the enemy’s movements.

From some of Shotaye’s gesticulations the maseua had concluded that the Tehua would proceed on the old trail leading from the Rito to the Puye, or at least keep himself very near that trail.  He was confirmed in it by the direction which the friend of the woman took after leaving her.  Topanashka maintained, therefore, the same course, going slowly and with the greatest caution.  He kept on the alert for the least noise that struck him as suspicious, or for which he could not at once account.

In consequence of the heat of the day, the forest was remarkably still.  Not a breeze sighed through the tops of the pines, for the wind that blows toward a coming storm and heralds its approach rises later in the day.  The distant gobbling of turkeys was a sound that awakened no suspicions, the more so as it grew fainter and fainter, receding in the direction of the higher crests and peaks.  Neither were the numerous crows a source of uneasiness to him.  On every clearing these birds gravely promenaded by half-dozens together, and his cautious gliding across such exposed places did not in the least discommode the dusky company.  As soon as Topanashka came in sight of the trail again he kept near it, but to its left, gliding from tree to tree or creeping across clear expanses from shrub to shrub.  He therefore moved more slowly than the Tehua whom he was pursuing.

In this manner he had advanced for quite a while, always keeping an eye on the trail to his right, when he caught sight of a suspicious object lying directly in the path, where the latter was barely more than a faint streak across the thin grass that grows sometimes on the plateaus in bunches.  At once the old man stopped, cowered behind a juniper, and waited.