About noon
Then he followed the trail to the northeast , hunting at intervals for a renewal of the sign lest he go wrong . Three times he found it , always the four cuts , eye-high , always in the trunk of a stalwart oak , and always they led in the direction in which he was going . The cuts were very deep , and he was quite sure that they had been made by Shif ` less Sol , who added to remarkable strength wonderful cunning and mastery in the use of a tomahawk . About noon , he came to a vast , shallow , flooded area , a third of a mile or more across , but extending farther to north and south than he could see either way . Doubtless the four had crossed there before the heavy rains made the flood , and as he was unwilling to take the long circuit to north or south he decided to make the passage on the ice which was thick and strong . He had been so free from danger for some time that he took little thought of it now , but when it was absent from his mind it came . When he was well out upon the ice he heard the crack of a rifle behind him and a bullet whizzed by his ear .