Below us lay a creek, its glittering thread visible here and there.  The Great Warrior trail crossed it somewhere in that ravine.

I drew the Mohican aside.

“Sagamore,” said I, “now is your time come.  Now we depend on you.  If it lay with us, not one white man here, not one Indian, could take us straight to Catharines-town; for the Great Warrior trail runs not thither.  Are you, then, confident that you know the way?”

“I know the way, Loskiel.”

“Is there then a trail that leads from the Great Warrior trail below?”

“There are many.”

“And you know the right one?”

“I have spoken, brother.”

“I am satisfied.  But we must clearly mark the trail for our surveyors and for the army.”

“We will mark it,” he said meaningly, “so that no Seneca dog can ever mistake which way we passed.”

I did not exactly understand him, but I nodded to Boyd and he gave the signal, and we began the descent through the warm twilight of an open forest that sloped to the creek a thousand feet below us.

Down and down we went, partly sliding, and plowing up the moss and leaves knee-deep, careless how we left our trail, as there was none to follow, save the debris of a flying army or the flanking scouts of a victorious one.

Below us the foaming rifles of the creek showed white in the woodland gloom, and presently we heard its windy voice amid rocks and fallen trees, soughing all alone through leafy solitudes; and its cool, damp breath mounted to us as we descended.

The Indians dropped prone to slake their thirst; the riflemen squatted and used their cups of bark or leather, pouring the sweet, icy water over their cropped heads and wrists.

“Off packs!” said Boyd quietly, and drew a bit of bread and meat from his beaded wallet.  And so the Mohican and I left them all eating by the stream, and crossed to the western bank.  Here the Sagamore pointed to the opposite slope; I gave a low whistle, and Boyd looked across the water at me.

Then I drew my hatchet and notched a tree so that he saw what I did; he nodded comprehension; we went on, notching trees at intervals, and so ascended the slope ahead until we arrived at the top.

Here the forest lay flat beyond, and the Great Warrior trail ran through it—­ a narrow path fifteen inches wide, perhaps, and worn nearly a foot deep, and patted as hard as rock by the light feet of generations—­ men and wild beasts—­ which had traversed it for centuries.

North and south the deeply graven war trail ran straight through the wilderness.  The Mohican bent low above it, scrutinizing it in the subdued light, then stepped lightly into it, and I behind him.

For a little way we followed it, seeing other and narrower trails branching from it right and left, running I knew not whither—­ the narrow, delicate lanes made by game—­ deer and bear, fox and hare—­ all spreading out into the dusk of the unknown forest.