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A litter of dirty rags, pieces of paper, scraps of stale bread, bones and feathers, with hoof-marks, wheel ruts, and the ashes of a large wood fire, pointed clearly to a gipsy encampment recently broken up. I laid my hand on the heap of ashes, and found it still warm, and on scattering it with my foot a layer of glowing cinders appeared at the bottom.
Attempts had been made to make out what the movements and positions of the legs "must" be, by studying the hoof-marks in a soft track laid for the purpose. But the result was not satisfactory. As everyone knows, the so-called "biograph" pictures are produced by an enormous series of consecutive instantaneous photographs taken on a continuous transparent flexible film or ribbon.
The open space adjoining it commands a splendid view to the north. There, too, on the parapet-wall, may be seen the hoof-marks of the horse of the robber-king, Ekkelein von Gailingen.
Horses cross the sand and hummocks as nearly as possible on a bee line; but the lava rarely indicates that anything has passed over it, and this morning a strong breeze had rippled the sand, completely obliterating the hoof-marks of the last traveller, and at times I feared that losing myself, as many others have done, I should go mad with thirst.
In less than five minutes two of the ranch hands lit on the tracks simultaneously. A great broad track of hoof-marks deeply indented in the soft ground stretched away up over the shoulder of the hill. So plain were they that the horsemen were able to follow them at a gallop. Away up the hillside they sped. The way was a sharp incline, but smooth and wide, and free from obstruction.
The sergeant, producing a small tape measure dotted down careful measurements of the over-shoed imprints and their length of stride, also the size of the shod hoof-marks. Redmond drew his attention to blood-stains in several of the latter. "Shod with 'never-slip' calks, Sergeant!" he said. "Must have slipped somewhere and 'calked' himself on the 'coronet, I guess?"
Here also it is said Cromwell stabled his horses; but if so, they were remarkably quiet beasts, for tombstones, which form the pavement, are not broken, nor cracked, nor bear any hoof-marks.
But no sooner had the unhappy fellow put his nose inside the door than Lady Clare laid back her ears in a very ugly fashion, and with a vicious whisk of her tail waltzed around and planted two hoof-marks in the door, just where the groom's nose had that very instant vanished.
Nothing remained of him but a broken halter cord, and no one knew what had become of him. After inquiring of everyone who was likely to know, Moti seized the cord and his big staff and sallied out to look for him. Away and away he tramped out of the city and into the neighbouring forest, tracking hoof-marks in the mud.
His hoof-marks were formerly visible on the rocks. At Hot Springs, North Carolina, two conspicuous cliffs are pointed out on the right bank of the French Broad River: Paint Rock where the aborigines used to get ochre to smear their faces, and which they decorated with hieroglyphics and Lover's Leap.
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