“Tisn’t so muddy, either.” He placed his hands on the planking over the two marks. They did not match his. “I didn’t think I had a paw like that,” he said.
He looked beneath him on the bank where the dank grass was flattened. “Too clumsy to vault it,” was his comment. “One of those big gawking country jays, I guess.” He crept up the bank to the road, where the moonlight flickered down through the branches of a willow tree. Reaching up, he wriggled a broken limb, then smilingly kicked a small twig that lay in the road. Crossing, he found a ruffled place, half in the road and half in the bordering growths, where the brush seemed to be trampled down. All this he examined in an amused, half-careless way. Presently he took a short run and leaped across the road. “Easy enough,” he said. Stooping, he carefully examined the ground and rose triumphant, holding a small, flat paper package in his hand. “Maunabasha!” he whispered to himself. (Maunabasha was the good Indian spirit that occasionally smiled on his endeavors.) He lighted a match and read the lettering on the package:
FARMER’S FRIEND PLUG CUT
THE TOBACCO OF QUALITY
A SOLACE TO THE TIRED TOILER
THE AROMA OF THE HARVEST FIELD
Harry took a whiff of the aroma of the harvest field. “The harvest field could sue for damages on that,” he thought. But despite his scout prejudice against tobacco, he was forced to admit that this little package had done him a good turn. Here was the unmistakable proof of a human presence, and it had not been here long, for it was fresh, unstained, and dry.
He put it in his pocket and went down the bank into the long meadow grass that skirted the river. It was easy enough for him to see where some one had preceded him here. The tall bent grass showed the trail plainly. He plodded on through this marshy patch till presently he found himself on the dry, abrupt shore of the river. Naked roots projected here and there, worn smooth with the friction of feet, and he was able to pick out a beaten path which ran along the stream’s edge. But the earth was hard and there was no sign of footprint. Stooping, he examined the ground carefully and presently discovered something which brought him to his hands and knees. This was a little mark in the earth about two inches long, knobby at one end and pointed at the other, as if some one had attempted to draw a pollywog in the sand. But Harry knew it for the imprint of a nail. He took an ordinary stride and found another one—then another. There was no sign of shoeprint, for the earth was too hard, but he found the nail impressions, printed crosswise for, maybe, half a mile. Then one appeared lengthwise and he turned up from the path.
So far, so good. But here was a stubbly field with never sign of trail or footprint. He tied his handkerchief to a branch of a tree where the trail ended and walked straight ahead for a few feet until he discovered a dim light flickering through the trees, which proved to come from the upper window of a small, dilapidated house. Under the trees in the little grove which surrounded it, he saw a stooping figure. He advanced stealthily to the edge of the grove and watched. By the light from the window he could see clearly a burly country fellow of, maybe, twenty-five years, who drew something from his pocket and, lifting the edge of a flat stone from the ground, placed it underneath. Harry skirted the grove without making a sound and reached a point in front of the stranger and about fifty feet from him. Here he stood behind a tree, watching the fellow as he packed some loose earth under the edge of the stone. Then, gliding noiselessly from one tree to another, he presently stood before the stooping figure, now pressing the stone down with all the strength of both arms. He spoke in the low, nonchalant, half-interested tone that was characteristic of him:
“Hello, what are you doing?”