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And there, sure enough, he found the hoof-prints of three horses, which were undoubtedly those he sought, for one of them paced. Roland galloped in pursuit. On reaching Monceaux same precaution, the riders had skirted the village; but Roland was too good a scout to trouble himself about that. He kept on his way, and at the other end of Monceaux he recovered the fugitives' tracks.
The air was full of the smell of flowers, and the buzzing of insects, and the twittering of birds, and there were no people, no wagons, there was no stir of life, nothing going on. The road was mainly a winding path with hoof-prints in it, and now and then a faint trace of wheels on either side in the grass wheels that apparently had a tire as broad as one's hand.
My companion passed to and fro, like a pointer in pursuit of a partridge. I had hoped we might trace them by the tracks; but this hope was abandoned, on perceiving that the rain had obliterated every index of this kind. Even the hoof-prints of my own horse made but an hour before were washed full of mud, and scarcely traceable. Had they gone upon horseback?
He jerked his hat down to his eyebrows and struck Glory with the quirt; but the trail he took was strange to Glory and he felt impelled to stop and argue as only Glory could argue with his master. Minutes passed tumultuously, with nothing accomplished save some weird hoof-prints in the sod.
To few does the delectable furor come. But of all the would-be followers in the hoof-prints of King Midas none has found a pursuit so rich in pleasurable promise. But, going back from my theme a while as lame pens must do I was a fool of the sentimental sort. I saw May Martha Mangum, and was hers.
They saw the man coming on behind stop his horse and lean forward, his head bent over the trail. He was examining the sand and halted quite a minute to study something. Both knew what he was studying the hoof-prints of Nan's pony heading toward the lava. Nan shrank back and with de Spain moved a little to where they could watch the intruder without being seen. Nan whispered first: "It's Sassoon."
Once in the burned herbage under the trees, he looked back to the road. There was rock and there was black leaf-mould. If in the latter any hoof-prints showed confusedly, the coming storm held promise of a pelting and obliterating rain. He pushed into a thick-set wood, and began a desperate ride across country. It was necessary to strike the main road below Red Fields.
Dave lost the hoof-prints for a time, but picked them up again at the pasture gate a few miles farther on, and was able to trace them far enough to assure himself that his quarry was indeed headed for the Austin house and had no intention of swinging southward toward the Lewis headquarters. By this time the rain had done its work, and to follow the tracks became a matter of guesswork.
At a little distance above them a shallow stream of some width flowed across the way, and to this the Highlander hastened, looked with attention at the road-bed where it emerged from the water, then came back to Audrey with a satisfied air. "There are no hoof-prints," he said. "No marks upon the dust. None can have passed for some hours."
Having pretty well overrun the country to the northward, without coming on any more satisfactory signs of deer than their hoof-prints in the moss, we returned on board.
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