heard him utter an
exclamation of surprise; then, fixing a keen eye upon me, he said--

"Fritz, you know more than you choose to tell."

"How so, Gideon?"

"The track that I should have been a week finding, you have got it at
once. Come, that's not all right!"

"Where do you see it, then?"

"Oh, don't pretend to be looking at your feet."

And pointing out to me at some distance a scarcely perceptible white
streak in the snow--

"There she is!"

Immediately he galloped up to it; I followed in a couple of minutes; we
had dismounted, and were examining the track of the Black Pest.

"I should like to know," cried Sperver, "how that track came here?"

"Don't let that trouble you," I replied.

"You are right, Fritz; don't mind what I say; sometimes I do speak rather
at random. What we want now is to know where that track will lead us to."

And now the huntsman knelt on the ground.

I was all ears; he was closely examining.

"It is a fresh track," he pronounced, "last night's. It is a strange
thing, Fritz, during the count's last attack that old witch was hanging
about the castle."

Then examining with greater care--

"She passed here between three and four o'clock this morning."

"How can you tell that?"

"It is quite a fresh track; there is sleet all round it. Last night,
about twelve, I came out to shut the doors; there was sleet falling then,
there is none upon the footsteps, therefore she has passed since."

"That is true enough, Sperver, but it may have been made much later; for
instance, at eight or nine."

"No, look, there is frost upon it! The fog that freezes on the snow only
comes at daybreak. The creature passed here after the sleet and before
the fog--that is, about three or four this morning."

I was astonished at Sperver's exactitude.

He rose from his knee, clapping his hands together to get rid of the
snow, and looking at me thoughtfully, as if speaking to himself, said--

"It is twelve, is it not, Fritz?"

"A quarter to twelve."

"Very well; then the old woman has got seven hours' start of us. We must
follow upon her trail step by step; on horseback we can do it in half the
time, and, if she is still going, about seven or eight to-night we have
got her, Fritz. Now then, we're off."

And we started afresh upon the track. It led us straight to the
mountains.

Galloping away, Sperver said--

"If good luck only would have it that she had rested an hour or two in a
hole in a ro