After all the activities of the forenoon both by the older boys and girls of the vacation party at Red Deer Lodge, and by the children as well, the soft snow was considerably marked up by footprints around the premises.
Ike M’Graw and Neale O’Neil, searching for prints of the feet of those who they thought had left the vicinity of the house early that morning, struck directly off for the edge of the clearing.
“The best we can do,” M’Graw declared, “is to follow the line of the woods clean around the clearing. Somewhere, whoever ’tis got that fox and lifted the canned goods, must have struck into the woods. They ain’t hidin’ in the barns or anywhere here. I’ve been searchin’ them. That’s certain.”
Neale had very bright eyes, and not much could escape them; but the snow was coming down fast now and even he could not distinguish marks many yards ahead.
Here and there they beheld footprints; but always examination proved them to be of somebody who belonged at the Lodge. The prints in the snow Luke and his sister and Ruth had made soon after breakfast fooled Neale for a moment, but not for long.
They saw the woodsman’s big prints, too, where he had been looking for the marks of the fox hunter. There were the marks Neale himself and Agnes had made when they had followed the “deer.”
All these various marks bothered the searchers; and all the time, too, the snow was falling and making the identification of the various prints of feet the more difficult.
“This here’s worse than nailing the animals that they say went into the ark that time Noah set sail for Ararat,” declared Ike, chuckling. “Whoever followed them critters up to the gangplank must have been some mixed up—
“Hello! What’s this?”
They had come around behind the sheds. Here was the entrance to the road on which Neale and Luke with the three older girls had coasted that forenoon. The woodsman was pointing to marks in the snow, now being rapidly filled in. Neale said: