“I tell ’ee what it is,” cried Robin, in an excited tone, “that’s my Nelly’s fut; I’d know the prints o’t among a thousand, an’ it’s quite plain Roy is with her, an’ that Wapaw has come on ’em, for their tracks are clear.”
“Sure it looks like it,” observed Larry O’Dowd, scratching his head as if in perplexity, “but the tracks is so mixed up, it ain’t aisy to foller ’em.”
“See, here’s a well-beaten track goin’ into the wood!” cried Walter, who had, like his companions, been searching among the bushes.
Every one followed Walter, who led the way towards the hut, which was finally discovered with a thin, scarcely perceptible line of smoke still issuing from the chimney. They all stopped at once, and held back to allow Robin to advance alone. The poor man went forward with a beating heart, and stopped abruptly at the entrance, where he stood for a few seconds as if he were unable to go in. At length he raised the curtain and looked in; then he entered quickly.
“Gone, Walter, they’re gone!” he cried; “come in, lad, and see. Here’s evidence o’ my dear children everywhere. It’s plain, too, that they have left only a few hours agone.”
“True for ye, the fire’s hot,” said Larry, lighting his pipe from the embers in testimony of the truth of his assertion.
“They can’t be far off,” said Slugs, who was examining every relic of the absent ones with the most minute care. “The less time we lose in follerin’ of ’em the better—what think ye, lad?” The Black Swan nodded his approval of the sentiment.
“What! without sleep or supper?” cried Stiff, whose enthusiasm in the chase had long ago evaporated.
“Ay,” said Robin sternly, “I start now. Let those stop here who will.”
To do Stiff justice, his objections were never pressed home, so he comforted himself with a quid of tobacco, and accompanied Robin and his men with dogged resolution when they left the hut. Plunging once more into the forest, they followed up the track all night, as they had already followed it up all day.