“How, if that be so, are we to account for the failure of those who try, honestly strive, struggle, and agonise, yet obviously fail?”
“It’s not for the like o’ me, Mr Brooke, to expound the outs an’ ins o’ all mysteries. Yet I will p’int out that you, what they call, beg the question, when you say that such people ‘honestly’ strive. If a man tries to unlock a door with all his might and main, heart and soul, honestly tries, by turnin’ the key the wrong way, he’ll strive till doomsday without openin’ the door! It’s my opinion that a man may get into difficulties of his own free-will. He can get out of them only by applyin’ to his Maker.”
During the latter part of this conversation the hunters had risen and were making their way through the trackless woods, when the scout stopped suddenly and gazed for a few seconds intently at the ground. Then he kneeled and began to examine the spot with great care. “A footprint here,” he said, “that tells of recent visitors.”
“Friends, Ben, or foes?” asked our hero, also going on his knees to examine the marks. “Well, now, I see only a pressed blade or two of grass, but nothing the least like a footprint. It puzzles me more than I can tell how you scouts seem so sure about invisible marks.”
“Truly, if they was invisible you would have reason for surprise, but my wonder is that you don’t see them. Any child in wood-craft might read them. See, here is the edge o’ the right futt making a faint impression where the ground is soft—an’ the heel; surely ye see the heel!”
“A small hollow I do see, but as to its being a heel-print I could not pronounce on that. Has it been made lately, think you?”
“Ay, last night or this morning at latest; and it was made by the futt of Jake the Flint. I know it well, for I’ve had to track him more than once an’ would spot it among a thousand.”
“If Jake is in the neighbourhood, wouldn’t it be well to return to the cave? He and some of his gang might attack it in our absence.”
“No fear o’ that,” replied the scout, rising from his inspection, “the futt p’ints away from the cave. I should say that the Flint has bin there durin’ the night, an’ found that we kep’ too sharp a look-out to be caught sleepin’. Where he went to arter that no one can tell, but we can hoof it an’ see. Like enough he went to spy us out alone, an’ then returned to his comrades.”
So saying, the scout “hoofed it” through the woods at a pace that tested Charlie Brooke’s powers of endurance, exceptionally good though they were. After a march of about four miles in comparative silence they were conducted by the footprints to an open space in the midst of dense thicket where the fresh ashes of a camp fire indicated that a party had spent some time.