And he never failed once, though many times he got off a straight course, thereby missing the easy travelling.
Joe did wonderfully well, but he lacked, as nearly all white men do, the subtler, intuitive forest-instinct, which makes the Indian as much at home in the woods as in his teepee.

Wetzel had this developed to a high degree.

It was born in him.

Years of training, years of passionate, unrelenting search for Indians, had given him a knowledge of the wilds that was incomprehensible to white men, and appalling to his red foes.
Joe saw how Wetzel used this ability, but what it really was baffled him.

He realized that words were not adequate to explain fully this great art.