Rudolph, a 31-year-old part-time carpenter and survivalist, has seemingly vanished within the depths of the Nantahala National Forest, a region of rugged, densely forested mountains that he knows better than many of his trackers.

Rudolph is charged in the fatal January 29 Birmingham, Alabama abortion clinic bombing and is sought for questioning in three Atlanta, Georgia-area bombings, including the explosion at the 1996 summer Olympics that killed one person and injured more than 100.

With a $ one million reward on his head and membership in the FBIs ‘‘Ten Most Wanted club, Rudolph has become the hard target of an exhaustive, 24-hour-a-day search by authorities who insist the trail has not gone cold.

With the hunt for him narrowed down to a 78-sq-km (30-sq-mile) areaaround Nantahala Lake, highly skilled ‘‘man trackers from the Georgia Department of Corrections look for footprints, broken sticks or other signs.

Investigators have scattered listening devices through the woods, and the silence of the night is shattered by the eerie echo of helicopters whose pilots use infra red heat-seeking devices to penetrate the lush forest canopy.

Like other aspects of the investigation, the helicopter searches have been frustrating because they pick up deer, bear and other forest creatures but no Rudolph.

‘‘We are going to catch him, but I don't know when, declares Macon County Sheriff Homer Holbrooks, whose deputies are assisting federal search parties. ‘‘It is tough. About the only way you can get through some of (the Bush) is to crawl.

The Southeast Bomb Task Force says investigators have received many solid leads and have even found some traces of the fugitive. At one campsite, they recovered buried trash with Rudolphs fingerprints on it. Dogs followed his scent from oneof the campsites, but it vanished in a creek into which the suspect had waded.

The longer Rudolph remains at large, the greater his larger-than-life aura grows. In these mountains, where formerly Cherokee Indians and bootleggers hid out from federal agents, Rudolph is ‘‘going to be a hero, said Jill Dempster, who works at the Rocky River Campground.

‘‘Most of these FBI guys are from big towns, noted Lanny Mason, owner of a Christian bookstore and florist shop in the town of Andrews. ‘‘They may know what they are doing, but they don't look like it.

The North Carolina mountains are a haven for hunters, hikers, whitewater paddlers and fugitives, especially Rudolph, who grew up in the area.

One day after the Birmingham bombing, which killed an off-duty policeman and maimed a nurse, Rudolph surfaced in nearby Murphy, where he bought groceries and rented the action movie ‘‘Kull the Conqueror from a video store.

With agents on his heels, he disappeared for more than five months. Then, on July 7, he turnedup just 20 km (15 miles) away, near Andrews, at the door of an old friend, 71-year-old George Nordmann, asking for food.

Nordmann, who owns a health food store in Andrews, took four days to tell the Macon County Sheriffs Department about the Rudolph sighting. He also reported that a six months supply of food had been taken from his home along with his pick-up truck.

When the truck appeared two days later at the Bob Allison Campground, investigators thought they were just a few hours away from Rudolph. But then they lost him once again.

Meanwhile, local residents who share Rudolphs opposition to abortion and his deep mistrust of the federal government have said they would rather help Rudolph than turn him in.

But Cherokee County Sheriff Jack Thompson said he does not believe the sentiment is widespread. ‘‘Id turn my brother in for one million dollars, wouldn't you? he said.