CHAPTER III
THE CORPORAL FINDS A LETTER
“DISAPPEARED!” As he echoed the corporal’s word in a hoarse voice, Rayner looked hastily and fearfully into the shadows, and then added, “Are you sure?”
“Quite sure,” answered Corporal Bracknell tersely. “This is the place where he lay. That is his blood in the snow there; and you can, see the print of his body if you look.”
“Then—then he was not dead after all?” asked Rayner in a strange voice.
“I would not say that. I would have taken my oath that there was no life in him. I even felt his heart!”
“But in that case, how has he got away?” inquired Rayner quickly. “Dead men do not walk away from the place where they die.”
“No,” answered the corporal quietly. “But they may be carried. It seems to me that there are more footmarks here than there were when I came on Koona Dick lying in the track; but I cannot be quite sure of that, as I did not look about very carefully.”
“Why not?” asked the other a trifle critically. “I should have thought that would have been the very first thing that you would have done.”