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In the latter, especially, there is not a range so elevated as to be inaccessible to them. On the very summit of Adam's Peak, at an altitude of 7,420 feet, and on a pinnacle which the pilgrims climb with difficulty, by means of steps hewn in the rock, Major Skinner, in 1840, found the spoor of an elephant.
We had left our companion out there alone, rendered helpless by the care of all three horses. Colebrook said never a word. He was a man of action. He turned with instinctive haste, and followed our own spoor back again with his hands and knees to the opening in the thicket by which we had first entered.
I spun a yarn to my men about lion spoor that I wanted to follow, and off I went by myself and did that fifty miles of bush and six-foot grass and rocks in thirty hours, which was pretty good, considerin'. It was afternoon when I came through a patch of palms and saw the kraal lying just beyond. "I hadn't much of an idea what kind of man I expected to see.
On these belts of rocky soil our difficulties were great, but here twice we were put on the right track by more fragments torn from the dress of Inez. At length we lost the spoor altogether; not a sign of it was to be found. We had no idea which way to go.
Presently out of the mass of lion tracks, Tarzan picked up those of many sandaled feet and the scent spoor of the members of the strange race such as had been with the lions the night before, and then faintly he caught the scent spoor of the girl and a little later that of Smith-Oldwick. Presently the tracks thinned and here those of the girl and the Englishman became well marked.
"For MacGregor's sake I hope that you have done him an injustice, but I am quite convinced that you acted judiciously in communicating your suspicions to me. However, there's still one point that wants clearing up. The patrol did not find MacGregor's body. Nor was there any spoor to show which way he went if he did succeed in breaking through the enemy.
He then started off along their spoor, but being hampered by caring for the pack-horse, he progressed but slowly. Night overtook him by the body of the dead giraffe. Unable through the darkness to follow the trail any farther, he remained by the carcass till morning.
Groot Willem and McTavish pushed on promptly to follow the spoor, while men were sent back to the glen for a supply of ammunition, etcetera, in case of a prolonged search becoming necessary. The search was ably planned and vigorously carried out; but all in vain.
An antelope had been ensnared in one of the Bushmen's pitfalls. Murray followed Ramotobi most trustingly along the Bushmen's spoor, though that led them away from the water we were in search of; witnessed the operation of slaughtering, skinning, and cutting up the antelope; and then, after a hard day's toil, found himself close upon the wagons!
It was afternoon before he had satisfied himself that his precious weapon was safe from any harm by dirt, or dampness, and then he arose and took up the search for the spoor he had followed to the opposite side of the swamp. Would he find again the trail that had led into the opposite side of the morass, to be lost there, even to his trained senses?
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