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A space some three feet high was visible; by crawling one could make his way along without hitting the ceiling. "Come on!" said Terry, scrambling to the top of the pile and pulling me after him, "we've struck the trail of our ghostly friend unless I'm very much mistaken. Look at that!" He pointed to a muddy foot-mark plainly outlined on one of the sacks.
Downing's brain was now working with a rapidity and clearness which a professional sleuth might have envied. Paint. Red paint. Obviously the same paint with which Sammy had been decorated. A foot-mark. Whose foot-mark? Plainly that of the criminal who had done the deed of decoration. Yoicks! There were two things, however, to be considered. Your careful detective must consider everything.
Across the foot of this glen, and past the door of the house we have described, ran a bridle road, from time immemorial; on which, as the traveller ascended it towards the house, he appeared to track his way in blood, for a chalybeate spa arose at its head, oozing out of the earth, and spread itself in a crimson stream over the path in every spot whereon a foot-mark could be made.
The man looked at the note, then at his foot-rule and measure then verified his former measurement by a second. "They correspond," he said, "within a hair-breadth, to a foot-mark broader and shorter than the former." Hatteraick's genius here deserted him "Der deyvil!" he broke out, "how could there be a foot-mark on the ground, when it was a frost as hard as the heart of a Memel log?"
Day after day, stoical as men of bronze, the marchers reeled off the long white miles over the snowy wastes, pausing only for night sleep with evening and morning meals. Here nibbled twigs were found; there the stamping ground of a deer shelter; elsewhere the small, cleft foot-mark like the ace of hearts. But the signs were all old. No deer were seen.
"You see, sir, I tracked the brute over the rails by his broad foot-mark, and as I knew he would come the same way, I fixed the rifle with a wire to the trigger, so that, as he climbed up, he must touch the wire with his fore-paws, and the muzzle, pointed a little downward, would then about reach his heart when the gun went off.
The gate of Fort Challenger had been untouched, the walls were unbroken, and yet it had been visited by some strange and powerful creature in our absence. No foot-mark showed a trace of its nature, and only the overhanging branch of the enormous ginko tree suggested how it might have come and gone; but of its malevolent strength there was ample evidence in the condition of our stores.
The Arab trackers had no difficulty in making them out; and in a few minutes had traced them from the mouth of the gorge almost in a direct line to the sea. There, however, there was a breadth of wet sea-beach, where the springy sand instantly obliterated any foot-mark that might be made upon it, and there the tracks ended. But why should they have extended farther?
The windward side was piled with snow, on the crest of which foam pellets lay, looking yellow by comparison, and melting small holes with their brine. At the door no foot-mark broke the drift; and against the vaporous sky no warmer vapor tufted the chimney-pots. "I am pretty nearly frozen again," said Mordacks; "but that place sends another shiver down my back.
The man looked at the note, then at his foot-rule and measure, then verified his former measurement by a second. 'They correspond, he said, 'within a hair-breadth to a foot-mark broader and shorter than the former. Hatteraick's genius here deserted him. 'Der deyvil! he broke out, 'how could there be a footmark on the ground, when it was a frost as hard as the heart of a Memel log?
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