Every time he
swooped a little nearer, and bent his long, scraggy neck.
Suddenly he swooped down, light and swift as a hawk; his wide wings
fanned the air; he poised under the tree, and then fastened sharp
talons in the doomed man's breast.
Chapter XXIX.
The fleeting human instinct of Wetzel had given way to the habit of
years. His merciless quest for many days had been to kill the
frontier fiend. Now that it had been accomplished, he turned his
vengeance into its accustomed channel, and once more became the
ruthless Indian-slayer.
A fierce, tingling joy surged through him as he struck the
Delaware's trail. Wingenund had made little or no effort to conceal
his tracks; he had gone northwest, straight as a crow flies, toward
the Indian encampment. He had a start of sixty minutes, and it would
require six hours of rapid traveling to gain the Delaware town.
"Reckon he'll make fer home," muttered Wetzel, following the trail
with all possible speed.
The hunter's method of trailing an Indian was singular. Intuition
played as great a part as sight. He seemed always to divine his
victim's intention. Once on the trail he was as hard to shake off as
a bloodhound. Yet he did not, by any means, always stick to the
Indian's footsteps. With Wetzel the direction was of the greatest
importance.
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