"You and I, Jervis,
must go and see where our friend went to when he left the path, and what
was the burden that he picked up."
We struck off into the wood, where last year's dead leaves made the
footprints almost indistinguishable, and followed the faint double track
for a long distance between the dense clumps of bushes. Suddenly my eye
caught, beside the double trail, a third row of tracks, smaller in size
and closer together. Thorndyke had seen them, too, and already his
measuring-tape was in his hand.
"Eleven and a half inches to the stride," said he. "That will be the
boy, Jervis. But the light is getting weak. We must press on quickly, or
we shall lose it."
Some fifty yards farther on, the man's tracks ceased abruptly, but the
small ones continued alone; and we followed them as rapidly as we could
in the fading light.
"There can be no reasonable doubt that these are the child's tracks,"
said Thorndyke; "but I should like to find a definite footprint to make
the identification absolutely certain."
A few seconds later he halted with an exclamation, and stooped on one
knee. A little heap of fresh earth from the surface-burrow of a mole had
been thrown up over the dead leaves; and fairly planted on it was the
clean and sharp impression of a diminutive foot, with a rubber heel
showing a central star.
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