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He swung to the back of the pony and cantered up the trail. But before he had gone a hundred yards, he was off again, examining the hoofmarks the animal left in the sand. The left hind mark differed from the others in that the detail was blurred and showed nothing but a single flat stamp. This seemed to interest Keller greatly.
A little later, as Marilla came sedately home, she noticed in the driveway some fresh hoofmarks which pointed toward the street, and quickly assured herself that they could not have been made very long before. "I wonder what the two of 'em have been doing all the afternoon?" she said to herself. "She's a little lady, that child is; and it's a burnin' shame she should be left to run wild.
"If we reach the deer we want to do it while it is light enough to take some pictures." With their cameras and guns ready for use, they went on, Tommy cautioning the dog to be silent. Wags seemed to understand and even acted as if he might lead them to the game. But he was not trained, so they took no chances on this. Deep in a hollow they came upon the unmistakable hoofmarks of three deer.
"We were afraid the shack would be carried right up into the air," said Jessie. "And we were so worried about you thinking a tree in the woods would come down on you." "Well, one did, pretty nearly," answered Dave, and gave the particulars. "The men have all gone off after the horse-thieves," said Roger. "But Todd hasn't much hope of tracing them, for the rain washed out all the hoofmarks."
All three leaped from the saddle and began a close examination of it, while their sweating horses promptly regaled themselves with the ripe, tufty grass at the trail side. Sergeant McBain narrowly scrutinized the wheel tracks, estimating the speed at which the last vehicle to pass had been traveling. The blurred hoofmarks of the horses warned him they had been driven hard.
"I've got to! That is all there is to it." He repeated the words over and over again. "What will Mrs. Laning and Mrs. Stanhope say, and Grace?" Again he went on, but this time slower than before, looking to the right and the left and ahead. Not a soul was in sight. The road was so cut up he could make nothing of the hoofmarks which presented themselves.
Some again avowed 'twas an agent of the Prince of Darkness, for there were hoofmarks of an unshod horse discovered on one or two occasions leading up and away from the scene of the slaughter, and blood drops alongside, as though the booty had been slung from the horse's quarters, and there dripped down as he sped along.
A persecution unsurpassed in violence had lasted near a score of years, and this was the result upon the persecuted; hanging, burning, breaking on the wheel, had been in vain; the dragoons had left their hoofmarks over all the countryside; there were men rowing in the galleys, and women pining in the prisons of the Church; and not a thought was changed in the heart of any upright Protestant.
"I want you to look at these hoofmarks," answered Dave, and he pointed up the stream a short distance. All passed to the locality indicated, and each youth looked at the hoofmarks with interest. They were made by a number of horses, probably six or eight, and though the marks were washed a little, as if by rain, they could still be plainly seen.
He was the wonder fullback of those times, and at the end of three years there wasn't a college anywhere that didn't have Ole's hoofmarks all over its pride. Oh, he was a darling.
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