Etienne
alone, could guide his men while day lasted, as well as a pilot
could steer a ship in a well-known archipelago, and in Ralph he had
a tower of strength.
Every landmark was known--the course of every stream; each tree, by
the direction in which it threw its boughs and by the mosses at the
foot of its trunk, told the points of the compass.
Yet there were probably, in so large an extent of country, many
wild glens and deep fastnesses hitherto untraversed, and these had
to be discovered and explored.
Straight through the territory assigned to them marched our little
band; keen-nosed dogs went first, secured by leashes, that the game
they continually aroused might not lead them astray; men followed
who, like American Indians, looked for "trails" in every soft
surface of ground, and along the banks of each stream of sweet
water, where men might come to drink, but by noon they had
traversed the whole extent of their territory in a straight line,
and discovered nothing. Once, indeed, they thought they were on the
scent of man; but they had crossed the trail of a wild boar and
could not restrain themselves from following it up, the scent was
so fresh, and herein they wasted much time, but succeeded in
killing their boar; and Etienne at once proposed that, since it was
midday, they should light a fire and dine upon its flesh.
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