The road was rather sandy at the point where Dory halted, as he could tell from the feeling of it. He lighted a match, for the purpose of applying a little Indian craft to the situation. Placing the lighted brand inside of his hat, to protect it from the wind, he stooped down, and began to examine the bed of the road. He had hardly bent his body to the task before he heard a sound, not a great distance from him, which was marvellously like a human voice. He sprang to his feet, and gazed into the gloom of the woods in the direction from which the sound had come. But all was silence except the piping of the violent wind through the branches of the trees. He strained his hearing-powers for some time, in the hope that the sound would be repeated; but he did so in vain. He was almost sure that he had heard a voice, and he was encouraged to believe that he was on the right track. The sound reached him very nearly at the instant when he had touched off the match. He spent a few minutes in reasoning over the circumstance. If the burglars were in the vicinity, the light of the match had enabled them to locate him; and he was willing to believe that the discovery of his presence had called forth a sudden exclamation of surprise from the least prudent of the two. Whether his conclusion was correct, or not, it satisfied him, and assured him that the marauders were near him. He was alone and unarmed; while there were two burglars, each perhaps provided with a revolver. The situation was not wholly satisfactory to him; for though he was as brave as a lion, he was also as prudent as a cat lying in wait for a bird. He had halted at the junction of the great road with the cart-path leading to Kingsland Bay; and the sound he had heard, assured him that the marauders were on this side-road. He had no more idea of attacking them than he had of running away from them. But the light had enabled them to fix his own position in the gloom, and Dory deemed it advisable to derange their calculations. With a careful step, he walked away from the junction of the roads by the way he had come. It would be as difficult for them to hear him as it was for him to hear them, and in a few moments he increased his pace. At the foot of a little hill, perhaps a quarter of a mile from his first stopping-place, he halted again. He did not believe they had followed him, for they could not have been aware of his movement. Lighting another match, he examined the road, as he had intended to do before. Between the ruts he found the footprints of two persons, who had been walking side by side. The marks were made by genteel boots or shoes, and not by any farmer or laborer who wore cowhide and broad soles on his feet.