“Jove, you can read all that in those tracks?”
“That’s part of the Boy Scout training, sir,” rejoined Rob modestly.
“It’s wonderful! Wonderful! But tell me, can you see the signs of any wild beasts?”
“Not one. That’s what makes it so mysterious. It is plain that something was after them and yet there are no tracks.”
“Well, we had better follow up the trail they have left through the jungle. That is our only course, in fact.”
On and on they pursued the trail, going slowly of necessity. Here they would lose the trail for a time and then again in a few minutes Rob’s cleverness as a Scout would pick it up again by means of a broken blade of grass or a creeper that had been brushed aside. Never had the young leader’s well-trained faculties been more on the alert than now as he followed his chum’s trail through the trackless jungle.
And all the while poor Tubby and Fred were wandering further and further from them. At length they reached the open space where the boys had paused a while and Tubby had shot at the monkeys overhead. All at once Rob darted forward. On the ground he had spied a brass shell. They examined it and found that it tallied with the caliber of Tubby’s rifle, but beyond this there was no further clue.
Suddenly Rob gave a cry of delight. He eagerly examined what appeared to Mr. Mainwaring to be nothing more than a clump of pampas grass slightly bent over to the left. But Rob’s quick eye had caught sight of a band of grass tied round its top just below the bend. To an ordinary person’s eye this would have meant nothing. But to Rob, trained in scouting, it meant that the two lads they were pursuing had turned to the left.
On they went again, never flagging through the hot noonday, but patiently picking up the trail as they went along. Now a scratch on the bark of a limb would show Rob the direction, presently some trampled grass or flowers led him on, again he would stumble on one of Tubby’s stone or grass signs.
All the time the trail kept getting fresher. Their hopes rose high.