"I cannot venture, for anything not exactly connected with the service," replied Lord H----, "to weaken the post by more than one quarter its number. Still we shall make up a sufficient party to search the woods adequately, if you will all go with me."
"That we will, that we will!" exclaimed a dozen voices.
Everything was soon arranged. Signals and modes of communication and co-operation were speedily agreed upon; and the practical knowledge of the boatmen proved fully as serviceable as the military science of Lord H----, who was far too wise not to avail himself of it to the fullest extent.
With about twenty regular soldiers, thirty-seven or thirty-eight men from the village, each armed with his invariable rifle and hatchet, and a number of good, big, active boys, who volunteered to act as a sort of runners, and keep up the communications between the different parts of the line, the nobleman set out upon his way along the edge of the forest, and reached the end of the government road, near which Walter had been last seen, about one o'clock in the day.
Here the men dispersed, the soldiers guided by the boatmen; and the forest ground was entered at about fourteen different places, wherever an old or a new trail could be discovered. Whenever an opportunity presented itself, by the absence of brushwood, or the old trees being wide or far apart, the boys ran across from one party to another, carrying information or directions; and, though each little group was often hidden from the other, as they advanced steadily onwards, still it rarely happened that many minutes elapsed without their catching a sight of some friendly party, on the right or left, while whoop and hallo marked their progress to each other. Once or twice, the trails crossing, brought two parties to the same spot; but then, separating again immediately, they sought each a new path, and proceeded as before.
Few traces of any kind could be discovered on the ground; for the rain, though it had now ceased, had so completely washed the face of the earth, that every print of shoe or moccassin was obliterated. The tracks of cart-wheels, indeed, seemingly recent, and the foot-marks of a horse and some men were discovered along the government road; but nothing more, till at a spot where a large and deeply-indented trail left the highway, the ground appeared a good deal trampled by hoof-marks, as if a horse had been standing there for some little time; and under a thick hemlock-tree, at the corner of the trail, sheltering the ground beneath from the rain, the print of a well-made shoe was visible. The step had evidently been turned in the direction of Mr. Prevost's house; and up that trail Lord H---- himself proceeded, with a soldier and two of the boatmen. No further step could be traced, however; but the boatman, who had been the spokesman a little while before, insisted upon it that they must be on young Master Walter's track.
"A New York shoe," he said, "made that print, I'm sure; and depend upon it we are right where he went. Keep a sharp look under all the thick trees at the side, my lord. You may catch another track. Keep behind, boys--you'll brush 'em out."
Nothing more was found, however, though the man afterwards thought he had discovered the print of a moccassin in the sand, where it had been partly protected. But some rain had reached it, and there was no certainty.
The trail they were then following was, I have said, large and deeply worn, so that the little party of Lord H---- soon got somewhat in advance of all the others, except that which had continued on the government road.
"Stay a bit, my lord," said the boatman, at length; "we are too far ahead, and might chance to get a shot, if there be any of them red devils in the wood. I know them well, and all their ways, I guess, having been among them, man and boy, this thirty years; and it was much worse when I first came. They'll lie as close to you as that bush, and the first thing you'll know of it will be a ball whizzing into you. If, however, we all go on in line, they can't keep back, but will creep away like mice. What I can't understand is, why they should try to hurt young Master Walter; for they were all as fond of him as if he were one of themselves."