lection
floated elusively through his brain. He tried to grasp and fix it
clearly in his mind. It was a recollection of something which had
happened a long while ago, in England, when he was at school.
Suddenly, he remembered. It was not something which had happened, but
something he had read under the great elm trees in the close. It was
that passage in _Robinson Crusoe_ which tells of the naked footprint
in the sand.

Norris dismounted, and stooped to lift the rifle; but all at once he
straightened himself, and swung round with his arms guarding his head.
There was no one, however, behind him, and he gave a little quavering
laugh, and picked up the rifle. It was a heavy lo-bore Holland, a
Holland with a single barrel, and that barrel was twisted like a
corkscrew. The lock had been wrenched off, and there were marks upon
the stock--marks of teeth, and other queer, unintelligible marks as
well.

Norris held the rifle in his hands, gazing vacantly straight ahead. He
was thinking of the direction in which he had come, southwest, and of
the stream which he had crossed, and of the patch of trampled mud,
where track obliterated track. He dropped the rifle. It rang upon a
stone, and again the screen of foliage shivered and rustled. Norris,
however, paid no attention to the movement, but ran back to that
object which he had passed, and took it in his hands.

It was oval in shape, being slightly broader at one end than the
other. Norris drew his knife and cleaned the mould from one side
of it. To the touch of the blade it seemed softer than stone, and
smoother than wood. "More like bone," he said to himself. In the side
which he had cleaned, there was a little round hole filled up with
mould. Norris dug his knife in and scraped round the hole as one
cleans a caked pipe. He drew out a little cube of mud. There was a
second corresponding hole on the other side. He turned the narrower
end of the thing upwards. It was hollow, he saw, but packed full of
mould, and more deliberately packed, for there were finger-marks in
the mould. "What an aimless trick!" he muttered vaguely.

He carried the thing back to the rifle, and, comparing them,
understood those queer marks upon the stock. They were the mark of
fingers, of human fingers, impressed faintly upon the wood with
superhuman strength. He was holding the rifle in his hands and looking
down at it; but he saw below the rifle, and he saw that his knees were
shaking in a palsy.