Here the reading of the sign occupied the tracker some little longer time; as there was a confusion of hoof marks—some turned one way, some the other. Those that had the toe towards Hollymead gate he knew to have been made by their own horses; but underneath, and nearly obliterated, were hundreds of others almost as fresh.
“That’s the trail of the scoundrels,” said Sir Richard, soon as the sergeant reported the result of his investigation. “They’ve gone over to the Gloucester side; by Drybrook and Mitcheldean. How strange our not meeting them!”
“It is—very strange,” rejoined Trevor; “but could they have passed through Mitcheldean without our meeting them?”
“Oh yes they could, Captain,” put in Wilde, once more mounted; “theer be several by-ways through the Forest as leads there, ’ithout touchin’ o’ Drybrook. An’ I think I know the one them have took. Whens us get to where it branch off their tracks’ll tell.”
“Right; they will,” said Sir Richard, laying aside conjecture, and calling to the officer in charge of the men to bring them on at quick pace.
At quick pace they came; the Colonel, Captain Trevor, and the big sergeant starting off before they were up, and keeping several horse lengths ahead.
The route they were taking was the same they had come by—back for Drybrook. But coming and going their attitude was different. Then erect, with eyes turned upward regarding the glare over Hollymead; now bent down, cheeks to the saddle bow, and glances all given to the ground. For, as Wilde had said, there were several by-ways, any one of which the pursued party might have taken; and to go astray on the pursuit, even to the loss of ten minutes’ time, might be fatal to their purpose—the feather’s weight turning the scale.
But no danger now; the moon was giving a good light, and the road for long stretches was open, the trees on each side wide apart. So they had no difficulty in seeing what before they had not thought of looking for; the hoof marks of many horses, that had gone towards Drybrook. The tracks of their own, going the other way, had almost obliterated them; still enough of the under ones were visible to show that two bodies of horse had passed in opposite directions, with but a short interval of time between.
As this could be noted without the necessity of stopping or slowing pace, Colonel Walwyn carried his men on in a brisk canter, designing halt only at the branch road of which the sergeant had spoken.
But long before reaching it they got information which made stoppage there unnecessary, as also further call on the ex-deer-stealer’s skill as a tracker—for the time. Given by a man mounted on a hotel hack, who, coming on at a clattering gallop, met them in the teeth. His cry “For the Parliament?” without being challenged, proclaimed him a friend. And he was; the innkeeper of Mitcheldean, recognised on the instant by Sir Richard and Rob Wilde.