“Right just there,” declared Trippler. “And I c’n swear to him. He——”
“Come over here,” invited Trask. “There are his footprints. As you said. And I’d know them anywhere. There’s no other dog of his size with such tiny feet. He gets them from his sire, Sunnybank Lad. Those are Tam’s footprints, I admit that. I’d know them anywhere;—even if they didn’t show the gash in the outer pad of the left forefoot; where he gouged himself on barbed wire when he was a pup.”
“You admit it was him, then!” orated Trippler. “That’s all I need to hear you say! Now, how much——?”
“No, no,” gently denied Frayne. “It isn’t anywhere near all you need to hear. Now, let’s go back into the cow-yard. As I crossed it, just now, I saw dozens of dog-footprints, among the hoof-marks of the calves. Let’s take another look at them.”
Grumblingly, yet eager to add this corroboratory evidence, Trippler followed him to the wallow of churned mud which marked the scene of slaughter. At the first clearly defined set of footprints, Trask halted.
“Take a good look at those,” he adjured. “Study them carefully. Here, these, for instance;—where the dog planted all fours firmly for a spring. They’re the marks of splay feet, a third larger than Tam’s; and not one of them has that gash in the pad;—the one I pointed out to you, back at the gap. Look for yourself.”
“Nonsense!” fumed Trippler, albeit a shade uneasily, as he stood up stiffly after a peering study of the prints. “Anyhow,” he went on, “all it proves is that there was two of ’em. This big splay-footed cuss and your collie. They was working in couples, like killers often does.”
“Were they?” Frayne caught him up. “Were they? Then suppose you look carefully all through this welter of cow-yard mud; and see if you can find a single footprint of Tarn’s. And while you’re looking, let me tell you something.”
As Trippler went over the yard’s mud with gimlet eyes, Trask related the story of Wisp’s killing; and his own theory as to Tam.
“He’s trailing that black dog,” he finished. “He struck his scent somewhere, and followed him. He got here a half-hour too late. And then when you fired at him he run off to pick up the trail again. But I doubt if he got it. For, the Black would probably be cunning enough to take to the river, after a raid like this. He’d have sense enough to know somebody would track him. That brute has true wolf-cunning.”