What Dick held in his hand when his two companions arrived, was a hunting knife, in the bone handle of which had been carved two tell-tale initials—“S.M.”!
CHAPTER XIX
A STRANGE TRAIL
Eagerly, the policeman and Toma examined the knife that Dick had found, which had, without a doubt, once reposed in Sandy McClaren’s sheath. Yet, after the first flush of excitement had worn off, they all realized that the clue was a very inadequate one. In itself it could not lead to Sandy. Only it served as an added incentive for them to search more diligently for some more definite trace of the lost boy.
As they circled slowly, getting farther and farther from camp, the snow continued to present a hard crust which had registered no record of the feet that had passed over it under the impenetrable shroud of the polar darkness.
But their patience was rewarded when Toma found a bit of bearskin with the long hair adhering to it. Upon examining the fur closely, they saw that it had been slashed from a larger piece of fur with a knife.
“It might have been cut from Sandy’s trousers,” ventured Dick.
“That’s possible,” rejoined Corporal McCarthy, “but we just found what seemed to be Sandy’s knife. What did he cut the fur with?”
Neither Dick nor Toma could answer that question, and at the time it did not seem important enough to worry about. Close to a hundred feet from where they had spied the first bit of bearskin, they found another fragment of the same kind of fur. It, too, had been obviously cut with a knife.
“Now I know Sandy has cut off these bits of fur to mark the way he went,” Dick cried excitedly. “Let’s hurry on and see where the next one is.”
After progressing nearly a quarter mile across the crusted snow, they had picked up nearly twenty bits of fur similar to the first one Toma had found, and were certain something more tangible would soon turn up.