Here they stopped to rest, and, far below them, marked with grim joy a twisted, leaning column of thick black smoke.
That night they camped in the woods and next day rejoiced to be back again at their own cabin, their own lake, their home.
Several times during the march they had seen fresh deer tracks, and now that the need of meat was felt, Rolf proposed a deer hunt.
Many deer die every winter; some are winter-killed; many are devoured by beasts of prey, or killed by hunters; their numbers are at low ebb in April, so that now one could not count on finding a deer by roaming at random.

It was a case for trailing.
Any one can track a deer in the snow.

It is not very hard to follow a deer in soft ground, when there are no other deer about.

But it is very hard to take one deer trail and follow it over rocky ground and dead leaves, never losing it or changing off, when there are hundreds of deer tracks running in all directions.
Rolf's eyes were better than Quonab's, but experience counts for as much as eyes, and Quonab was leading.

They picked out a big buck track that was fresh--no good hunter kills a doe at this season.