waterside, finding
nothing but sundry "stances" where the angler had stood while fishing,
and the nook in which he had slept among the bracken, with the marks of
our feet as we went toward him from the stile.

We started off home without making any more discoveries, and as we went
Elsie pointed up to the firs above our heads.

"What sort of leaves were in the cart when we saw it?" she asked me
suddenly.

"Some kind of big, broad leaves--oak, I think," I answered, for indeed,
I had paid no very great attention.

"Well," she said, "will you please tell me where big, broad leaves came
from in Spar hawk Wood?"

And then I saw how true it was--the thing that she meant to say. There
were only tall Scotch firs in the Sparhawk, and not a low-growing tree
or one with a leaf upon it! Only pine needles and fir cones.

"We will come back in the morning," I said to Elsie, "and see what we
can find. Piebald Bess never came back this road!"

"As, indeed, we might have seen before this by the single tracks," she
added. And, indeed, it was no great discovery after all. But old
Codling and the village men just took it for granted, and as many of
the farmers and even my father came in conveyances there was soon no
lack of tracks all over the road.

But Elsie and I kept our counsel and made tryst for the morning. It is
terrible to get bitten with the wanting to find out things. The more
you know the more you want to know.

Next morning it was still and clear, with a promise of heat. Elsie had
asked Nance Edgar if she could go, but I had dispensed with asking my
father. Indeed, so long as he was assured that I was the cleverest boy
in school, and at the top of the topmost class, he did not trouble much
about me, having other things on his mind. And Mr. Mustard was always
ready to tell him all that. Besides it was true. I was not so clever
as Elsie, and I did not pretend to be. But I could lick everybody in
Breckonside school into fits, and the master was cowed of my father. I
think he would have let me sit on his tall hat!

This morning was a Friday, as I remember, and there were plenty of men
searching the moor, prowling about the woods, some with picks and
shovels, some just with their hands in their pockets. They were
looking for Harry Foster. The East Dene police, too, were all about
the edges of Sparhawk Wood, as important as if they knew all about it
but wouldn't tell. One of them, posted by the big, black