"Unless what?"
"Unless someone of our crowd has come this way ahead of us."
"But they wouldn't be that far ahead."
"Not likely."
"Then I believe we've struck his trail and now to see if we can find another mark to show which way he went from here."
For fully ten minutes they searched before Jack called softly:
"Here it is, Bob."
He was off a short distance above and slightly to the right of the bed of moss and pointed to a freshly snapped twig as his brother joined him.
"You're right," Bob declared after a quick examination. "Now we've got the general direction, but keep your eyes peeled."
They had climbed nearly a quarter of a mile, they judged, before finding another sign and this time it was only a small rock which had evidently slipped and turned over as someone stepped on it. But a slight dampness on the top proved to their trained senses that it had been but recently disturbed.