shadows, nosing, listening, prowling on velvet pads to the very edges of our rock escarpment.

“They have the noses of wild things,” whispered the Mohican uneasily. “Somewhere they have found something that belongs to one of us, and, having once smelled it, have followed.”

I thought for a moment.

“Do you believe they found the charred fragments of my pouch-flap? Could they scent my scorched thrums from where I now lie? Only a hound could do that! It is not given to men to scent a trail as beasts scent it running perdu.”

The Mohican said softly:

“Men of the settlement detect no odour where those of the open perceive a multitude of pungent smells.”