Under a giant spruce, the lower boughs of which had been cut away at some time or another, was a medley of tracks, which called for detailed examination. He stood regarding them for a moment, and then he looked around him. As he did so he saw that the trail, which he was following, moved forward from the huddle of tracks by which he had paused, and that they led into an open lane in the trees. He looked again, took a step or two forward, and then whistled slowly to himself. He was looking at the place where the body of Koona Dick had lain. The stained snow was hidden by freshly drifted snow, the impress of the body however was still visible, and standing near it, Corporal Bracknell looked back. There was a clear line of vision from the place where the fallen man had lain to the great spruce in the shadow of which was that huddle of tracks. He went back to the spruce, bent over the trampled snow for a little time, and then standing upright looked towards the path. Then he nodded his head.
“She stood just here,” he murmured thoughtfully. “There’s the mark of her rifle-stock in the snow, and those deeper tracks show that she stood waiting a little time. Then when Koona Dick came, she—But did she?”
As he broke off and asked himself the question he remembered Joy Gargrave’s face as he had first seen it when he entered the dining room at the lodge. It had not looked like the face of a girl who had quite recently shot a man, and though he recalled it with that look of terror which it had worn when he had first seen it, and again with that troubled look in the eyes when he had explained that Koona Dick was the criminal that he sought, he felt that his reasoning and his reading of the trail must somehow be at fault.
He stood considering the matter for a minute or two, glancing now and again to the place where Koona Dick had lain, and the frown which had came upon his face deepened. Then he recalled the note which he had picked up on the previous night and the frown lightened a little.
“Of course!” he whispered to himself, “she discovered its loss and came out here to look for it.”
But had she shot the man whom he had hoped to make his prisoner, the man who unquestionably had written that note to her? He could not decide, and as it was too cold to stand still for long together, he began to walk in a rather wide circle round the scene of the tragedy. Then he made a fresh discovery. On the other side of the path he found other footprints in the snow, and, following the track, reached a point where the person who had made them had quite evidently come to a standstill behind a clump of bushes. Corporal Bracknell looked through the screen of small branches, and once more found himself in full view of the place where Koona Dick had fallen.
The frown on his face deepened once more. He carefully examined the footmarks behind the bushes, and decided that they were at least some hours old. Probably they had been made the night before, and it was at least possible that the individual who had made them had witnessed the tragedy which had taken place.
He began to follow the footmarks from the point at which they left the bushes, and had gone but a little way when he found that the trail was crossed by another almost at right angles, a trail much more deeply marked and the first sight of which told him that either the person who had made it was of very heavy build, or had been bearing a considerable burden.
Perplexed beyond measure he stared at this new trail, then he looked round. The tall spruce alone met his eye. The profound silence of the primeval North was over all. There was no sound of life anywhere.
“And yet,” he murmured to himself, “there were quite a lot of people here last night. What were they all doing?”