“What is it, Hippy?”
“Here is where some person jumped down from the porch roof,” he said. “See! The heel marks of a pair of boots are plain and recently made.”
“Yes, that is all very well, Hippy, but did they first climb to the roof?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out,” muttered Hippy. Lieutenant Wingate stood on the porch rail and peered up over the sloping roof. He was clinging to the edge of the roof with one hand while the other hand grasped a vine that grew up over the veranda roof.
“I can’t see anything that looks like a clew,” declared Hippy.
“Then you aren’t nearly so observant as I thought,” replied Grace.
“Eh? What’s that?”
“The vine has been quite recently torn at the edge almost under your hand, just as if someone had used it to assist him in climbing to the roof, and there are the marks of someone’s boots on the rail where you are standing. Hippy, what is the matter with your eyes?” laughed Grace.
“I never could see in the morning,” complained Hippy. “You’re right, Brown Eyes.” Getting down, he examined the heel marks on the ground. Lieutenant Wingate then picked up the trail in earnest and followed the footprints a little way back of the hotel. He soon discovered that another pair of boots had joined the first, and together had gone away in the direction of the Overland camp.
Hippy followed these bootprints, Grace trailing along behind him for some distance, then they lost the trail entirely on hard ground, and were unable to find it again.