“There isn’t a footprint here,” I told them.
“She must have slid on the ice,” Brent said.
“I’m going to drag that dog over here by the collar,” Rossie spoke up.
“It’s a mystery,” Pee-wee shouted; “it’s a deep, dark mystery. We’ve got to solve it—I mean penetrate it.”
Gee whiz, that kid was more excited than the dog.
XII—A DISCOVERY
We all just stood there not knowing what to think. I could tell that Tom Slade had some kind of an idea, but you never catch that fellow shouting out about anything till he’s sure. Even when he was a tenderfoot in the troop he was that way.
It seemed mighty funny that we should find just one footprint in those bushes, but maybe there weren’t any more across that open space because it was hard and rocky. Anyway, the scent led out into that open space, that was sure. Then on the opposite side of the open space the bushes were broken and there was a rag hanging to one of them. Yet we couldn’t get that dog to go all the way across and take up the scent where we found the rag. That was the funny thing. It was funny that there weren’t any footprints under those bushes where the rag was hanging, too. Believe me, Pee-wee was right, it was a mystery.
Pretty soon the dog began following the scent back and Will Dawson went after him. In about ten minutes he came up again and said that the dog had followed it as far as a brook where there was a willow tree. He said the dog got rattled there just the same as he did on the summit. So he studied the place carefully and saw that there was a branch of the tree that stuck out over the water and he swung himself across and then back again by that. So he decided that was probably what the man had done on his way up the mountain. So you see that trail was cut in two places.
Will said that he left the dog poking around at the edge of the stream. And that was the last we saw of the dog till we got back to our caravan. Then we saw that he was under the van asleep. He was resting up so he could chase Eliza in the afternoon, that’s what Brent said. He chased Eliza twice every day, that bloodhound did.