"Do you see anything remarkable about them?" he asked.
"I notice that they are considerably deeper than our own," I answered.
"Yes, and the boots are about the same size as ours, whereas the stride
is considerably shorter--quite a short stride, in fact. Now there is a
pretty constant ratio between the length of the foot and the length of
the leg, between the length of leg and the height of the person, and
between the stature and the length of stride. A long foot means a long
leg, a tall man, and a long stride. But here we have a long foot and a
short stride. What do you make of that?" He laid down his stick--a
smooth partridge cane, one side of which was marked by small lines into
inches and feet--beside the footprints to demonstrate the discrepancy.
"The depth of the footprints shows that he was a much heavier man than
either of us," I suggested; "perhaps he was unusually fat."
"Yes," said Thorndyke, "that seems to be the explanation. The carrying
of a dead weight shortens the stride, and fat is practically a dead
weight. The conclusion is that he was about five feet ten inches high,
and excessively fat.
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