The board path curved on between the trees for some distance only to end abruptly where boards had rotted and floated away. After a break of several yards, the walk picked up again for a short ways, but Penny had no intention of wading through water to follow it further.
Pausing to rest before starting back, she noticed beyond the water oaks a narrow stretch of higher land covered with dense, wild growth. Above the trees a huge buzzard soared lazily.
“Ugly bird!” she thought, watching its flight.
Penny was about to turn and retrace her steps, when she noticed something else—footsteps in the muck not far from the end of the boardwalk.
“Someone has been here recently,” she reflected. “Those prints must have been made since the last rain.”
Even from some distance away. Penny could see that the shoemarks were small ones.
“Probably the person who made them is the same fellow who built the campfire,” she thought. “Wonder where the footprints lead?”
Penny tried to draw her eyes away, but the footprints fascinated and challenged her. She longed to investigate them further. However, she had not forgotten Trapper Joe’s warning that it was unsafe to leave the boardwalk.
“If I watch out for snakes and only go a short ways, what harm can it do?” she reasoned.
A moment more and Penny was off the walk, treading her way cautiously along the muddy bank. She paused to listen.