Hersey, more especially, made him his object of pursuit. He had come here for that purpose, his pride and reputation were at stake, and the thousand dollars Martin had agreed to pay was a minor factor. He and his mate passed hours in the mornings and late in the afternoon watching from wide apart outlooks on the ridge. They made long jaunts up the brook valley to where the smoke sign had been seen, they found where this half-breed had built a fire here, and later another lair, a mile from the cabins and in this ridge. Long detours they made in other directions. Old Tomah's trail through the forest was crossed; but neither in forest nor on lake shore were any recent footprints of the half-breed found. Old ones were discovered in plenty. An almost beaten trail led from his lair in the ridge to a crevasse back of the cabins, but to one well versed in wood tracks, it was easy to tell how old these tracks were.
A freshly made trail in the forest bears unmistakable evidence of its date, and no woodwise man ever confounds a two or three days' old one with it. One footprint may not determine this occult fact; but followed to where the moss is spongy or the earth moist, a matter of hours, even, can be decided.
A week of this watchfulness, with no sign of their enemy's return, not even to within the circuit patrolled time and again, began to relieve suspense and awaken curiosity. They had been so sure, especially Martin, that he would come back for revenge, that now it was hard to account for his not doing so.
"My idee is he got so skeered at them two shots," Old Cy asserted, "he hain't stopped runnin' yit." And then the old man chuckled at the ludicrous picture of this pernicious "varmint" scampering through a wilderness from fright.
But Old Cy was wrong. It was not fear that saved them from a prompt visitation from this half-breed, but lack of means of defence. The one shot remaining in his rifle at the moment of meeting had been sent on its vengeful errand, all the rest of his ammunition was in his canoe, and now on the bottom of the stream. Being thus crippled for means to act, the only course left to him was a return to his cabin seventy-five miles away, with only a hunting-knife to sustain life with.