Tayoga still in front, they plunged into the
depths of the forest, and advanced at speed a half hour, when they
heard a single faint cry behind them.
"They've found our trail at the end of the natural bridge," said Willet.
"It is so," said Tayoga, in his precise school English.
"And they're mad, mad clean through," said the hunter. "That single cry
shows it. If they hadn't been so mad they'd have followed our trail
without a sound. I wish I could have seen the faces of the Ojibway and
the Frenchman when they came back and noticed our trace at the end of
the tree. They're mad in every nerve and fiber, because they did not
conclude to go upon it. It was only one chance in a thousand that we'd
be there, they let that one chance in a thousand go, and lost."
The great frame of the hunter shook with silent laughter. But Robert, in
very truth, saw the chagrin upon the faces of Tandakora and De
Courcelles. His extraordinary imagination was again up and leaping and
the picture it created for him was as glowing and vivid as fact. They
had gone some distance, and then they had come back, continually
searching the thickets of the opposite shore with their powerful and
trained eyesight.
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