Indeed, they had not advanced more than a hundred paces farther, when the traces of three Indians became distinctly visible in the leaves and soft vegetable mold of the woods--as if they who had left them there had thought that as they had thus far so completely concealed their trail they might thenceforth proceed with less circumspection, as now quite beyond the risk of pursuit. On closely inspecting the foot-prints, Burl knew by certain signs--such as the unusual slenderness of one and the mark of a patched moccasin in the other--that two of them had been left by feet whose traces he had examined at the corn-field fence. The third foot-print he had not seen that day, he was sure, nor its like until that moment, never in all his border experience. It was the longest and, excepting his own, the broadest foot-print he had ever seen, and must have been left there by the tread of a giant. The individual, then, who had captured his little master, and had him now in keeping, might not be of this party; and so far as concerned the main object of this their solitary adventure, they might, after all, be on a cold trail. Nevertheless, they pushed on with speed and spirit. They had not proceeded more than a furlong farther, when Grumbo stopped short, and giving a double sniff uttered a quick, low yelp both of surprise and joy, so it seemed, which said, as plainly as words could have said it, "Halloo! what's this?" Then, after another quick sniff or two, looking up at his master and expressing himself by wag of tail and glance of eye, he added: "Good luck in the wind ahead."
That Grumbo had actually expressed this much may fairly be inferred from Burl's answer: "O you's got a sniff of our pore little master's sweet little feet, has you, at las'? Well, we kin foller our noses now an' know whar we gwine."
Had Burl needed any interpretation of his dog's language in this particular instance, he would have found it, a few yards farther on, in two little foot-prints left clearly impressed in the clayey margin of a forest brook but a few hours before. He stopped to look at them, and his big eyes filled with tears of pitying tenderness at the sight. Grumbo, too, smelt of them, and as he slowly drew in the familiar scent, his wild eyes grew almost human in their look of affection, like those of a Newfoundland. Burl now turned to inspect more narrowly the foot-prints of the Indians, which were likewise left deeply impressed in the stiff clay of the brook's margin. Nearest to those of the boy's were the traces of the slender-footed Indian, who, in the act of taking the long stride that was to clear him of the water, seemed to have taken a short step aside to pick the little fellow up and lift him over dry-shod. This was further evident from the reäppearance of the little foot-prints on the other bank, side by side, instead of one in advance of the other. Farthest to the left were the traces of the savage who wore the patched moccasin. Between them, broad, long, and deep, and at huge strides apart, were the foot-prints of the giant. At these traces of some redoubtable warrior, so it would seem, Big Black Burl, with grave and fixed attention, gazed for many moments. Then, as if to bring the dimensions of the savage more vividly before his mind's eye, he measured one of the prints by laying his own foot over it, and found that, although not the broader of the two, it was the longer, from which it was fairly to be inferred that the red giant must be at least seven feet high, standing in his moccasins.