“I seem to see marks as of hands, master, but--”
“No matter! On! We must find her! Quick--lead the way!”
Five minutes of agonizing suspense for Allan brought him, still following the guides, without whom all would have been utterly lost, to a kind of thickly wooded dell that descended sharply to the edge of the cañon. Into this the trail led.
Even he himself could now here and there make out, by the aid of his light, a broken twig, trampled ferns and down-crushed grass. Once he distinguished a blood-stain on a limb--fresh blood, not coagulated. A groan burst from between his chattering teeth.
He turned his light on the grass beneath. All at once a blade moved.
“Oh, thank God!” he wheezed. “They passed here only a few minutes ago. They can't be far now!”
Something drew his attention. He snatched at a sapling.
“Hair!”
Caught in a roughness of the bark a few short, stiff, wiry hairs, reddish-brown, were twisted.
“One of the Horde?” he stammered.