“Guess we have struck that old timber cruiser’s place,” Neale said, answering his own question.
“Oh! Mr. Ike M’Graw!” cried Agnes. “Now we can ask him if he shot the fox last night.”
“But where did these deer go?” exclaimed Neale, stopping on the edge of the little clearing and staring all around.
For here the tracks they had followed seemed to cross and criss-cross all about the clearing. That wild deer should frolic so about an occupied house was indeed puzzling. He saw, too, that there were human footprints over-running the marks of the split hoofs.
Suddenly from around the corner of the cabin appeared the long, slablike figure of the woodsman. He saw them almost immediately.
“Hullo, there!” he cried. “Ain’t you out early? I wouldn’t have been up near so early myself, if it hadn’t been for those confounded shoats of mine.”
“What happened to the pigs?” asked Neale, smiling.
“They broke out o’ their pen. Always doin’ that!” returned M’Graw. “Run off through the woods somewhere, and then come back and made sech a racket around my shanty that I can’t sleep. Confound ’em!”
Neale suddenly saw a great light. He seized Agnes’ hand and squeezed it in warning. With his other hand he pointed to the marks in the snow.
“Are those the pigs’ footprints?”