Its great size too indicated to him that it might be that of Tandakora, a belief becoming with him almost a certainty as he found other and similar traces farther on.

He followed them about a mile, reaching stony ground where they vanished altogether, and then he turned to the west.
The fact that Tandakora was so near, and might approach again was not unpleasant to him, as Tayoga, having all the soul of a warrior, was anxious to match himself with the gigantic Ojibway, and since the war was now active on the border it seemed that the opportunity might come.

But his attention must be occupied with something else for the present, and he went toward the west for a full hour through the primeval forest.

Now and then he stopped to listen, even lying down and putting his ear to the ground, but the sounds he heard, although varied and many, were natural to the wild.
He knew them all.

The steady tapping was a woodpecker at work upon an old tree.