From the culminating point where he stood, David, commanding the plain a long distance, satisfied himself that Frederick was neither before nor behind him, nor was he on his right; he must then have disappeared suddenly by the escarpment on the left. David's anguish was insupportable when he thought of Madame Bastien's despair if he should return to her alone. But this inactive terror did not last long. A man of great coolness and of a determination often put to the test in perilous journeys, he had acquired a rapidity of decision which is the only hope of safety in extreme danger. In a second he made the following argument, acting, so to speak, as he thought: "Frederick has escaped from me only on the side of the escarpment; he has not thrown himself down this precipice, I would have heard the sound of his falling body as it broke the branches of the great trees I see there below me; he has then descended by some place known to himself; the ground is muddy, I ought to discover his tracks; where he has passed I will pass, he cannot be more than five minutes in advance of me." David had travelled on foot with Indian tribes in North America, and, more than once in the chase, separated from the main body of his companions in the virgin forests of the New World, he had learned from the Indians with whom he hunted how, by means of rare sagacity and observation, to find those who had disappeared from his sight. Returning then to the spot where he had first perceived that Frederick had disappeared, David saw in the length of five or six metres, no other than that made by his own steps; but suddenly he recognised Frederick's tracks turning abruptly toward the edge of the escarpment, which they coasted for a little, then disappeared. David looked down below. At a distance of about fifteen feet the top of an elm extended its immense arms so far as to touch the steep declivity of the escarpment. Between the thick foliage of this tree-top and the spot where he was standing, David observed a large cluster of broom, which one could reach by crawling along a wide gap in the clayey soil; there he discovered fresh footprints. "Frederick succeeded in reaching this tuft of brushwood," said David, taking the same road with as much agility as daring, "and afterward," thought he, "suspending himself by the hands, he placed his foot on one of the largest branches at the top of the elm, and from there descended from branch to branch until he reached the foot of the tree." In David the action accompanied the thought always. In a few minutes he had glided to the top of the tree; a few little branches broken recently, and the erosion of the bark in several spots where Frederick had placed his feet, indicated his passage.