Now, keeping her cautious feet in the trail by sense of touch alone, she moved on. Gradually, as she advanced, the odour of smoke became more distinct. She heard nothing, saw nothing; but there was a near reek of smoke in her nostrils and she stopped short.
After a little while in the intense silence of the forest she ventured to touch the switch of her torch, very cautiously.
In the faint, pale lustre she saw a tiny rivulet flowing westward from a spring, and, beside it, in the mud, imprints of a man's feet.
The tracks were small, narrow, slimmer than imprints made by any man she could think of. Under the glimmer of her torch they seemed quite fresh; contours were still sharp, some ready to crumble, and water stood in the heels.
A little way she traced them, saw where their maker had cut a pole, peeled it; saw, further on, where this unknown man had probed in moss and mud — peppered some particularly suspicious swale with a series of holes as though a giant woodcock had been "boring" there.
Who was this man wandering all alone at night off the Drowned Valley trail probing the darkness with a pole?
She knew it was not her father. She knew that no native — none of her father's men — would behave in such a manner. Nor could any of these have left such narrow, almost delicate tracks.
As she stole along, dimly shining the tracks, lifting her head incessantly to listen an peer into the darkness, her quick eye caught something ahead — something very slightly different from the wall of black obscurity — a vague hint of colour — the very vaguest tint scarcely perceptible at all.
But she knew it was firelight touching the trunk of an unseen tree.
Now, soundlessly over damp pine needles she crept. The scent of smoke grew strong in nostril and throat; the pale tint became palely reddish. All about her the blackness seemed palpable — seemed to touch her body with its weight; but, ahead, a ruddy glow stained two huge pines. And presently she saw the fire, burning low, but redly alive. And, after a long, long while, she saw a man.