"All things considered," Mr. Cumshaw said slowly, "we've made little mess. We've got to thank that grassy slope for that. If it had been dry earth there'd have been tracks enough in all conscience. Yes, I think we can reasonably say that we've no need to fear anything—unless accidents."
As near as they could judge the valley was about a mile across at its widest, but it merged so gently into the further side of the ranges that it was almost impossible to say exactly. The wood grew thicker as the men advanced, until presently it was with difficulty that they could make their way forward.
"Getting pretty close," Bradby said at length.
Cumshaw nodded. He was too busy thinking over certain little peculiarities of the wood to take much notice of his companion's remarks. His quick eye had seen little cuts in the trees, bits of bark that had been chipped off here and there, and the sight set him wondering. The cuts were curiously like the blazing of a trail. They were regular, they were all about the same height on the tree-trunks, and they looked as if they had been made with an axe, not the crude stone weapon of an aborigine, but the sharp steel axe of a white man. Yet the place seemed deserted, and in all the air was that sense of utter desolation and absence of life that only those who have lived close to Nature can feel and understand.
"We're not the first here," Cumshaw said suddenly.
Bradby turned on him in alarm. "What d'y' mean?" he asked indistinctly.
"Some of the trees are blazed," Cumshaw pointed out. "The cuts are clean, and that means they've been done with an axe. But they're all weather-worn, so it must have been some time ago."
"I don't like the look of it all the same," Bradby said despondently. "It means that someone else has stumbled on this place—it doesn't matter much whether it was yesterday or ten years ago—and what has been done before will almost certainly be done again. If those troopers come this way——"
"What's the good of crossing the bridge before you come to it?" Cumshaw interrupted. "We've been lucky so far, and who's to say our luck won't hold out till the end?"
"It's the end I'm looking at," Bradby said gloomily. "It might be the sort of end neither of us'd fancy."