“Yes; there’s a spring just back of us.”
“Yet there’s not a footprint discernible on it.”
“I’ve got that part of the lesson by heart, I think.”
“Use your brain on it, then. Some one designing to make you his target, has been in this thicket; been and gone, and left the place trackless. That some one was a keen soft-footed woodsman. Putting it in words of one syllable, I should say he probably had the racial instinct of the hunt. Does that flush any idea from the deep and devious coverts of your brain?”
“Racial instinct? Gansett Jim!” said Sedgwick.
“Exactly. If I had found tracks all over the place, I should have known it wasn’t he. Finding nothing, I was naturally pleased.”
“That’s more than I am,” retorted the other. “I suppose he’s likely to resume his gunnery at any time.”
“Unless we can discourage him—as I expect we can.”
“By having him arrested?”
“Difficulties might be put in our way. Sheriff Len Schlager and the half-breed are in some sort of loose partnership in this affair, as you know. Gansett Jim honestly thinks that you had a hand in the Lonesome Cove murder, as he believes it to be. It isn’t impossible that the sheriff has subtly egged him on to kill you in revenge.”