In five minutes they delivered their verdict. The missing white men had "gone up." They were positive about that, but, like the Sibenga Kraal trackers, they resolutely declined to continue their investigations in the overhanging branches of the trees.
"Dashed if I'll be done!" exclaimed Wynyard. Then turning to the native sergeant, he bade him bring a rope from the second car and make it fast to one of the branches.
Assisted by Tenpenny Nail and Blue Fly, the sergeant carried out his instructions. Thereupon Wynyard swarmed up the rope and gained the leafy branch. But there was nothing that afforded him a clue, or, if there were, he failed to detect it. The leaves and young twigs showed no sign of having been disturbed; the resinous wood bore no trace of the contact of the studded sole of a boot.
"Were they carrying rifles?" he inquired, calling down to Van der Wyck, twenty-five or thirty feet below.
"Yes," replied the old farmer. "They had when we left the kraal."
"And these haven't been found?"
"No; we found nothing."
Wynyard knotted his brow in perplexity. Presumably, Sinclair and Desmond were either carrying their rifles in their left hands or else had the weapons slung across their backs.
Assuming the native trackers' assertions to be correct, what happened to the rifles? Either they would have fallen to the ground or else they would have caught and torn away some of the foliage.
"Well, I consider this the limit—the absolute limit," declared Wynyard, as he prepared to descend.