Bevis: The Story of a Boy

by Richard Jefferies

Volume Three—Chapter Twelve.

New Formosa—The Trail.

At the water’s edge some flags were bent, and then the tall grass, as high as their chests, was thrust aside, forming a path which had evidently been frequently trodden. There was now no longer the least doubt that the creature, whatever it was, was of large size, and as the trail was so distinct the thought occurred to them both at once that perhaps it had been used by more than one. From the raft they could see along it five or six yards, then it turned to avoid an alder. While they stood looking Pan came back, he had run right through and returned, so that there was nothing in the reed-bed at present.

Bevis stepped over the bulwark into the trail with the matchlock; Mark picked up the axe and followed. As they walked their elbows touched the grass each side, which showed that the creature was rather high than broad, lean like the whole feline tribe, long, lean, and stealthy. The reed-grass had flowered and would soon begin to stiffen and rustle dry under the winds. By the alder a bryony vine that had grown there was broken and had withered, it had been snapped long since by the creature pushing through.

The trail turned to the right, then to the left round a willow stole, and just there Pan, who trotted before Bevis, picked up a bone. He had picked it up before and dropped it; he took it again from habit, though he knew it was sapless and of no use to him. Bevis took it from his mouth, and they knew it at once as a duck’s drumstick. It was polished and smooth, as if the creature had licked it, or what was more probable carried it some distance, and then left it as useless. They had no doubt it was a drumstick of the wild duck Mark shot.

The trail went straight through sedges next, these were trampled flat; then as the sedges grew wider apart they gradually lost it in the thin, short grass. This was why they had not seen it from the land, there the path began by degrees; at the water’s edge, where the grasses were thick and high, it was seen at once. Try how they would, they could not follow the trail inland, they thought they knew how to read “sign,” but found themselves at fault. On the dry, hard ground the creature’s pads left no trail that they could trace. Mark cut off a stick with the axe and stuck it up in the ground so that they could find the spot where the path faded when walking on shore, and they then returned to the raft. On the way they caught sight of Bevis’s arrow sticking in the trunk of the alder, and withdrew it.

At the water’s edge they looked to see if there was any spoor. In passing through the reed-grass the creature had trampled it down, and so walked on a carpet of vegetation which prevented any footprints being left on the ground though it was moist there. At the water’s edge perhaps they might have found some, but in pushing the raft up the beams had rubbed over the mud and obliterated everything. When they got on the raft they looked over the other bulwark, and a few yards from the shore noticed that the surface of the weeds growing there appeared disturbed.

The raft was moved out, and they found that the weeds had been trampled; the water was very shallow, so that the creature in approaching the shore had probably plunged up and down as the spaniel did in shallow water. Like the reed-grass the trampled weeds had prevented any footprints in the ooze. They traced the course the creature had come out for fully thirty yards, and the track pointed straight to the shore of the mainland so that it seemed as if it started at no great distance from where they used to land.

But when they had thrust the raft as far as this, not without great difficulty, for it dragged heavily on the weeds and sometimes on the ground, the marks changed and trended southwards. The water was a little deeper and the signs became less and less obvious, but still there they were, and they now pointed directly south. They lost them at the edge of the weeds, the water was still shallow, but the character of the bottom had changed from ooze to hard rock-like sand. Here they met the waves driven before the southerly wind, and coming from that part of the New Sea they had not yet explored. The wind was strong enough to make it hard work to pole the raft against it, and the spray dashed against the willow bulwark.

These waves prevented them from clearly distinguishing the bottom, though the water was very shallow, but then they thought if it had been calm the creature’s pads would have left no marks on such hard sand. It was now more than an hour after sunset, and the louring clouds rendered it more dusky than usual so soon. The creature had evidently come from the jungle southwards, but it was not possible to go there that night in the face of the rising gale. The search must be suspended till morning.