At length he reached the level at the top of the ascent; and, pointing with his hand to the tumulus, he said, turning to those who followed him, "You, William, ride up as far as you can upon the mound, and keep a keen eye upon the whole plain. If you see any one skulking about or watching, give instant notice, and gallop up if you hear me call. You come with me," he added, to his own man; and, taking the shortest cut towards the sandpit, he spurred on towards the spot where he had last seen the gipsies. The bushes, however, were now directly between him and the bank that had sheltered their encampment, so that he could see nothing till he was nearly upon the pit. Then, however, his disappointment was not small to find the usual relics of a gipsy resting-place, but nothing else. A few rags, a leaf of an old black-letter book, feathers of many birds, and fur of more than one sort of beast, several charred spots, and a large stick or two, were to be seen upon the ground; but nothing else met the eye in any direction, and Manners paused for a moment to lay out what was to be done next. "Go back for a hundred yards," he said, at length, turning to his servant; "and then make a slow circle at that distance quite round this pit, seeing whether you can find fresh footmarks in any direction." The servant obeyed, and in a few minutes, exclaimed, "Here are a great many, sir, along this road, which seems to go down the other side of the hill. Horses' feet, too, and cart-wheels, quite fresh." "Go on quite round," rejoined his master. "What do you find more?" "Here are a good many scattered footmarks in this direction, sir," replied the man when he had arrived at a spot situated exactly between Manners and the little tumulus; "but they do not tend in any particular way that I can see." Manners rode up; but the footprints were turned in many directions, and were of various sizes, some seemingly fresh, and some half-effaced by others. Nothing, therefore, could be discovered from the traces on that particular spot; but as Colonel Manners had every reason for believing that his friend must have approached the gipsy encampment from that side, he took the pains of dismounting, and tracing the different steps some way upon each of the several paths in which they led. It was in vain, however; the whole were so puzzled and intermixed that he could make nothing of them, and had his foot in the stirrup to mount again when De Vaux's servant came down from the mound, at full gallop, exclaiming, "There is certainly some one watching there, sir, at the edge of that wood. I have seen them come out and in three times. There! there! Do you see, sir? He is coming more forward now."