"Not a bit," came back the ready answer; "and as I've seen the tracks of a bear more than once I think I'd know such a thing."
"Told you so," declared George, in a disgusted voice. "Another one of Buster's false alarms. That's the way he's been doing all along; seeing snags ahead when there wasn't one, and making me check up in a hurry, and that was hard on my engine."
"Go slow," observed the boy who was on his knees. "I said there wasn't any bear tracks, didn't I? But that doesn't mean Buster didn't see something."
"Goodness gracious! it wasn't a panther, was it?" gasped George.
"Oh! no, only a man," replied the other. "Look here, and you'll see the plain print of his foot and toes in the dirt; and an unusually big foot, too."
"Barefooted!" exclaimed George, bending eagerly over.
"That's so; but haven't we seen scores of negroes barefooted all along?" Jack said, positively.
"Then it was a coon. Say, why did he run away, then? Jack, you remember all they told us above about the troubles down here in the region around Coahoma county? Don't you believe that this fellow may have been a desperate negro, hunted by the Regulators, who want to string him up?"
Jack pretended to laugh, though George detected a vein of uneasiness in his comrade's manner.
"Oh! well," he went on, "I hardly think it's quite as bad as that, George. But still, he certainly did run away when he found he had been seen; and that looks bad."