“Well, then, who carries a smooth-bore through these hyar woods? Who, Ned Heywood?”
“I know only one man that does.”
“Name him! Name the damned rascal!”
“Dick Darke.”
“Ye kin drink afore me, Ned. That’s the skunk I war a-thinkin’ ’bout, an’ hev been all the day. I’ve seed other sign beside this—the which escaped the eyes o’ the others. An’ I’m gled it did: for I didn’t want Dick Darke to be about when I war follerin’ it up. For that reezun I drawed the rest aside—so as none o’ ’em shed notice it. By good luck they didn’t.”
“You saw other sign! What, Sime?”
“Tracks in the mud, clost in by the edge o’ the swamp. They’re a good bit from the place whar the poor young fellur’s blood’s been spilt, an’ makin’ away from it. I got only a glimp at ’em, but ked see they’d been made by a man runnin’. You bet yur life on’t they war made by a pair o’ boots I’ve seen on Dick Darke’s feet. It’s too gloomsome now to make any thin’ out o’ them. So let’s you an’ me come back here by ourselves, at the earliest o’ daybreak, afore the people git about. Then we kin gie them tracks a thorrer scrutination. If they don’t prove to be Dick Darke’s, ye may call Sime Woodley a thick-headed woodchuck.”
“If we only had one of his boots, so that we might compare it with the tracks.”
“If! Thar’s no if. We shall hev one o’ his boots—ay, both—I’m boun’ to hev ’em.”
“But how?”