“If that’s so, there must be some tracks in the snow,” returned Bobby. “Scatter out, fellows, and see if you can find any marks of hoofs or wheels.”
They followed his directions, and in a moment there was a cry from Sparrow.
“Here’re the marks of wheels,” he called. “But I don’t see any horse tracks.”
There, indeed, were the clearly defined print of wheels leading in a roundabout way toward the town. As they looked a little more closely they could see too where a man’s feet had broken at places through the crust of snow.
“It must have been a hand cart,” said Bobby, “and you can see that it held ashes from the bits that lie along its tracks. That’s what they brought it in and you can bet on it.”
“There aren’t many hand carts in town,” observed Fred reflectively. “How many do you fellows remember seeing?”
“The laundryman has one,” replied Howell, “and the paper man has another. Those are the only ones I know of, except that shaky thing of Dago Joe’s.”
“He’s the fellow!” cried Fred excitedly. “None of the others would lend their carts for anything like that.”
“Let’s follow up the tracks and see where they lead to,” suggested Sparrow.
This was detective work to their liking and even Pee Wee made no objections to the tramp over the snow.