‘I think we’re on to him now,’ said the Police; ‘which way did you say them footstepses was, Missie?’
‘Farther on,’ said Caroline. ‘I tied my handkerchief to a tree to mark the place.’
‘You never!’ said the Police admiringly; ‘why, you deserve to be in the Force, Miss. It’s not every constable, even, would have thought of that.’
And I believe he spoke the truth.
Following Caroline and the Police, pushing miserably through the bushes that sprang back as the others passed through and tried to hit them in the face, Charlotte and Charles exchanged glances full of meaning.
The whole party made a good deal of noise: there was the rustling of leaves, both the green and the dead kind; the snapping of twigs underfoot; the grating of bough against bough as the searchers pushed through the hazels and sweet chestnuts and young oaks.
‘You’d do fine for keepers,’ said William, coming last. ‘No poachers wouldn’t never hear you a-coming.’
‘That your handkerchief, Miss?’ the Police at the same moment asked smartly, and pointed to a white thing that drooped from a dog-wood branch; ‘you identify the handkerchief?’
‘Yes,’ said Caroline in a stifled voice, ‘and there’—she pointed down.
There were footprints, very plain and deeply-marked footprints, not very large, yet not small like a girl’s. They were the footprints, beyond any doubt, of a boy.