Utterly puzzled, they gave it up for the day, as already the shades of night were on the woods, and in spite of Skookum's voluble offer to solve and settle everything, they returned to the cabin.
"What do you make of it, Quonab ?' The Indian shook his head, then: "Maybe touched his head and stunned him, first shot; second, wah! I not know." "I know this," said Rolf.

"I touched him and I mean to get him in the morning." True to this resolve, he was there again at dawn, but examined the place in vain for a sign of blood.

The red rarely shows up much on leaves, grass, or dust; but there are two kinds of places that the hunter can rely on as telltales--stones and logs.

Rolf followed the deer track, now very dim, till at a bare place he found a speck of blood on a pebble.
Here the trail joined onto a deer path, with so many tracks that it was hard to say which was the right one.

But Rolf passed quickly along to a log that crossed the runway, and on that log he found a drop of dried-up blood that told him what he wished to know.
Now he had a straight run of a quarter of a mile, and from time to time he saw a peculiar scratching mark that puzzled him.