He knelt and marked the hoof-prints where Appleweight had been left tied; but the grass here was much trampled, and Griswold was misled by the fact, not knowing that news of Appleweight's strange disappearance had passed among the outlaw's friends by the swift telegraphy of the border, and that the whole neighborhood had been threshed over hours before. It might have been some small consolation to Griswold had he known that Appleweight's friends and accomplices were as much at a loss to know what had become of the chieftain as the men who had tried so ineffectually to kidnap him. From the appearance of the trampled grass many men had taken a hand in releasing the prisoner, and this impression did not clarify matters for Griswold. "Where does this path lead?" asked Barbara. "This is Ardsley land here, this side of the church, and that trail leads on, if I remember, to the main Ardsley highway, with which various other roads are connected--many miles in all. It's inconceivable that the deliverers of this outlaw should have taken him into the estate, where a sort of police system is maintained by the forestry corps. I don't at all make it out." He went off to explore the heavy woods on each side of the trail that led into Ardsley, but without result. When he came gloomily back he found that in his absence Barbara had followed the bridle-path for a considerable distance, and she held out to him a diminutive pocket handkerchief, which had evidently been snatched away from its owner--so Barbara explained--by a low-hanging branch of an oak, and flung into a blackberry bush, where she had found it. It was a trifle, indeed, the slightest bit of linen, which they held between them by its four corners and gravely inspected. "Feminine, beyond a doubt," pronounced Griswold sagely. "It's a good handkerchief, and here are two initials worked in the corner that may tell us something--'G. D.' It probably belongs to some guest at Ardsley. And there's a very faint suggestion of orris--it's a city handkerchief," said Barbara with finality, "but it has suffered a trifle in the laundry, as this edge is the least bit out of drawing from careless ironing." "And I should say, from a certain crispness it still retains, that it hasn't been in the forest long. It hasn't been rained on, at any rate," added Griswold. "But even the handkerchief doesn't tell us anything," said Barbara, spreading it out, "except that some woman visitor has ridden here within a few days and played drop the handkerchief with herself or somebody else to us unknown." "She may have been a scarlet fever patient from Ardsley; you'd better have a care!" And Griswold's tone was bitter. "I'm not afraid; and as I have never been so near Ardsley before, I should like to ride in and steal a glimpse. There's little danger of meeting the lord of the manor, I suppose, or any of his guests at this hour, and we need not go near the house."