Tracking a man through dense woodland was notoriously difficult. Fortunately, the Oneida scout was making no attempt to conceal his spoor. Neither, to judge from the length of his stride, was he moving at full stretch. His pace was that of a man hurrying while trying to conserve energy, a rate of progress that suggested he had some distance to cover. Whatever his motive, it made him easy to follow, despite the fact that he was not forging his own path through the brush but retracing the steps he and his scouting party had taken in their outward journey.

Tewanias had gauged the measure of the Oneida’s stride at the start. In so doing he was able to calculate where each succeeding footfall would land. He could keep up the chase without pausing constantly to take stock.

Whether the prey was human or animal, unless it was something big and heavy it was rare for a pristine imprint to be left behind, even in the softest soil. If the hunter was chasing a man, there might be the hint of a depression to indicate where his quarry had pushed off to take his next step or, if not that, then perhaps a small patch of flattened earth where the texture of the surface had been altered by a weight pressing down upon it. But it was seldom that convenient. Other peripheral signs therefore took precedence: a crushed flower, or a stone that had been dislodged on the path, or a branch bent back by a careless body moving past. Meaningless to those without the skill to understand what they were seeing, but as prominent as milestones to someone with the required knowledge.

Streams and rivers presented the biggest challenge. Tracking in water was well nigh impossible, so one had to scan the banks for signs: a broken cat-tail, a bent reed or, in the case of the Oneida scout, a muddy palm print that showed where the runner had forded the stream, slipped, and used a hand to steady himself as he emerged from the current and regained his footing.

At the sight of the print, Tewanias halted. The mud was still damp, which told him that he had almost closed the gap. He wondered if the man he was chasing was a stranger to the woods or familiar with them. Though the Oneida lands lay far to the west, beyond Te-non-at-che, the river that flowed through the mountains, it was likely that in the times before the Six Nations had been divided by the war – when the Oneida and the Tuscarora had chosen to side with the Americans – the runner had hunted in these mountains and therefore knew the hidden as well as the main trails.