“Huh,” said he, “his shoes need soling, that’s one sure thing.”
He examined with care a little thin crooked indentation in the soil, as if a petrified angleworm had been pushed into the hard earth.
“Huh,” said he, “I hope he kicked into it hard enough so it stays there.”
He was satisfied that the fugitive’s shoe was worn in the sole so that the outer layer, worn thin and flopping loose, had slid onto one of the little malleable leaden bars used in the cathedral-glass windows. This had evidently pushed its way into the tattered sole, bent a little from the impact, and lodged securely. Either the fugitive did not feel it, or did not care to pause and remove it. It made a mark as plain as Tom’s patrol sign.
He cast one apprehensive look at the open windows of the upper floor and, taking a chance, made a bold dash across the rear lawn, where he thought he could discern footprints in the newly-sprouting grass. Several hundred feet away was the boundary fence and here the correctness of his direction was confirmed by a painty smooch on the top rail where the fugitive had climbed over.
Tom leaped across the fence and, as usual, after any vigorous move, he felt instinctively to see if his precious five-dollar bill was safe. He lived in continual dread of losing it. He paused a minute scrutinizing the small crooked marks left by the leaden bar. Then he thought of something which added fresh zest to his thus far successful search. It was provision four of the Second Class Scout tests:
Track half a mile in twenty-five minutes, or,...
“If I do that,” said he, looking at his dollar watch, “it’ll land me in the Second Class with a rush, and if I should get the pin for her that would knock the Commissioner off his feet, all right. Here’s my tracking stunt mapped out for me. I never claimed I could cook. Oh, cracky, here’s my chance!”
He got the word “Cracky” from Roy.
As he turned and cast a last look toward the house someone (a woman, he thought) seemed to be waving her arm from one of the upper casements. He could not make up his mind whether she was beckoning to him or only scrubbing the window. Then he entered the woods where the ground was sparsely covered with pine-needles.