Here I should have been in despair for the lack of any intelligible hint to point the way; and I think not even Jennifer, with all his woodcraft, could have read the record of the onfall as Yeates and the Catawba did. But for all the overlapping tangle of moccasin and hoof prints neither of these men of the forest was at fault, though ten minutes later even their skill must have been baffled, inasmuch as the first few spitting raindrops were pattering in the tree-tops when we came upon the ground. "That's jest about what I was most afeard of," said the borderer, with a hasty glance skyward. "Down on your hunkers, Chief, and help me read this sign afore the good Lord takes to sending His rain on the jest and the unjest," and therewith these two fell to quartering all the ground like trained dogs nosing for a scent. We stood aside and watched them, Richard and I, realizing that we were of small account and should be until, perchance, it should come to the laying on of hearty blows. After the closest scrutiny, which took account of every broken twig and trampled blade of grass, this prolonged until the rain was falling smartly to wash out all the foot-prints in the dusty road, Yeates and the Indian gave over and came to join us under the sheltering branches of an oak. "'Tis a mighty cur'is sign; most mighty cur'is," quoth the hunter, slinging the rain-drops from his fur cap and emptying the pan of his rifle, not upon the ground, as a soldier would, but saving every precious grain. "Ez I allow, I never heerd tell of any Injuns a-doing that-away afore; have you, Chief? hey?" The Catawba's negative was his guttural "Wah," and Ephraim Yeates, having carefully restored the final grain of the priming to his powder-horn, proceeded to enlighten us at some length. "Mighty cur'is, ez I was a-saying. Them Injuns fixed up an ambush_ment_, blazed in a volley at the clostest sort o' range, and followed it up with a tomahawk and knife rush,--lessen that there Afrikin was too plumb daddled to tell any truth, whatsomedever. And, spite of all this here rampaging, they never drawed a single drop o' blood in the whole enduring scrimmage! Mighty cur'is, that; ain't it, now? And that ain't all: some o' them same Injuns, or leastwise one of 'em, was a-wearing boots with spurs onto 'em. What say, Chief?" Uncanoola held up all the fingers of one hand and two of the other. "Sebben Injun; one pale-face," he said, in confirmation. I looked at Richard, and he gave me back the eyeshot, with a hearty curse to speed it. "Falconnet!" said he, by way of tail-piece to the oath; and I nodded. "'Twas that there same hoss-captain, sure enough, ez I reckon," drawled Yeates. "Maybe one o' you two can tell what-all he mought be a-driving at."