218 MARTIN RATTLER.

would turn out and track him, with unerring certainty,
to any hiding-place. Still the strength of his stern
determination sustained him, and at each failure in
his efforts to devise some means of effecting his
purpose he threw off regret with a deep sigh, and
returned to his labour with a firmer step, assured
that he should eventually succeed.

As he sat there on the edge of the precipice he
said, half aloud, “What prevents me from darting
suddenly on that fellow and knocking him down?”

This was a question that might have been easily
answered. No doubt he was physically capable of
coping with the man, for he had now been upwards
of a year in the wilderness, and was in his sixteenth
year, besides being unusually tall and robust for his
age. Indeed he looked more like a full-grown man
than a stripling, for hard, incessant toil had de-
veloped his muscles and enlarged his frame, and his
stirring life, combined latterly with anxiety, had
stamped a few of the lines of manhood on his sunburnt
countenance. But, although he could have easily
overcome the Indian, he knew that he would be
instantly missed, and from what he had seen of the
powers of the savages in tracking wild animals to
their dens in the mountains, he felt that he could not

possibly elude them except by stratagem.