“Don’t bother him, Ned,” hastily muttered Ruel, as Campbell sprung from his horse. “It’ll be the savin’ o’ him—them tears. He’d go plum crazy else—an’ no wonder, nuther. First Fred, now the gal.” “Then you think—” faltered Campbell, chokingly. “But we don’t _know_,” was the hasty reply, for Ruel knew in what relation the young couple stood to each other, and dreaded the result. “An’ I never give up hope while thar’s a chance left. She _may_ be rubbed out; I don’t say she isn’t. But why—who by? Surely the fellow wasn’t cussed fool enough to kill her an’ then hisself? You see _some one_ must ’a’ helped—an’ that’s jest what we must look for now. You must help—you’re good on the trail—an’ it’ll keep you from gittin’ as _he_ is. Go that way—I’ll go this. Look cluss round the aidges o’ the trampled spot. Mebbe we kin find sunkthin’ to pay us.” Separating, the two young men crouched low down, carefully and thoroughly scrutinizing every inch of the ground for several yards beyond the edge of the torn and trampled spot. Their search was successful, for at almost the same moment, a cry announced some discovery. “What is it, Ned?” muttered Ruel, springing to his friend’s side. “Prints of a horse’s hoofs at full gallop. See—they toe away, and—look! See the blood-spots!” “Sure enough—plenty, too. But now the question is—was thar anybody on him? Right here he looks as if he was runnin’ loose-like. But let that rest fer a bit, an’ come over an’ look at my find. I want your ’pinion on it. Them pesky wolves hes ’most blotted it out.” “It’s the print of a man wearing a boot,” muttered Campbell, after a close scrutiny. “He is leaving this place—on a run. See how the toes cut in?” “Right—but—” “With boots on, you say?” interrupted Hawksley, who had risen unobserved. “Yes, and large ones too.” “Then _he_ did not make them, for he left his boots at the house, with his empty saddle-bags.” “Likely he took moccasins out o’ the bags, so’s to step easy,” suggested Ruel. “Hark! some one is coming.” “Two, rather, from the sound. Yes—see; it’s Fenton an’ Morley. Jest in time, boys,” he added, as the two men rode up to the spot. “We want you, with Hawksley here, to take an’ foller up this trail, while Ned an’ I look to t’other ’ne. Grupp the feller _alive_, mind ye. Whoever he is, he kin tell all what happened here last night. Think you kin foller it, Morley?” “Ef any man kin, I kin,” quietly replied the little, weasen-featured hunter, throwing his bridle-rein to Fenton. “If you git him, send up a smoke o’ wet grass. We’ll see it, an’ we’ll do the same if we git sure news fust.” But little more was said. Hawksley had by this time entirely regained his composure, and, though he firmly believed that his child was dead, he resolved to bear up until he had drank deeply of revenge. He, together with Fenton and Morley, set forward upon the trail, the old hunter tracing it up with the certainty of a blood-hound.