He relit the embers of the fire which the bush rangers had made, cooked some food, and laid himself down--first to think it over, then to sleep, for it was now just the close of day.
It was clear to him that here, more than anywhere else, the bush rangers had made a great effort to throw anyone who might be pursuing them off the trail.

He had no doubt that the bush rangers had muffled their horses' hoofs with cloth, and had proceeded with the greatest care through the bush, so as to avoid breaking a single twig in their passage; and the only reason for such greater caution could be that it was here, and here only, that they wished to throw the pursuers off the trail.

It would have seemed, to a white man, that they had done this before, especially when they had kept in the water course; but to black Jim's perception, it appeared that they had been more careless than would be expected; and that, while apparently doing their utmost to conceal their tracks, they had really left sufficient indications to allow a practised tracker to follow them.
Why then, now that they were far beyond the settlements, and fairly in the country of their native allies, should they, for the first time, so hide their trail that he could not discover it?
The result of Jim's thoughts was that, when he awoke at daybreak, he started back towards the settlements.

When he came to the river which the party had passed, in pursuit of the natives, he kept along its bank, scrutinizing the ground with the greatest care.
After six miles' walking he suddenly stopped, at a point where the soft turf near the margin was cut up by the passage of the party of horsemen.

Here was the confirmation of his ideas.
Arguing the matter out with himself, Jim had arrived at the conclusion that, hitherto, the trail had been a false one, the bush rangers' object being to lead their pursuers to believe that they had gone far out into the native country; whereas, in fact, their hiding place was somewhere among the settlements.