and sometimes found out things that even the black trackers did
not understand. The black went back to his work in silence. Presently he
grunted again. His quick eyes had noticed a grey woollen thread stamped
into the earth. He lifted it gingerly up in his hand and held it out to
the police. The sergeant took it, examined it carefully, and then,
without any comment, handed it round to the others. There was no need to
ask what it meant. All knew without being told that someone had lately
passed that way, and who could that someone be unless one of the
rangers?

The black went back again to the trail, bending down close to the ground
for all the world like a little dog following the scent of the chase. He
turned sharply off into the bushes and the troop went after him. Here
and there--wherever the earth had chanced to be a little softer than
usual--one could see round depressions somewhat about the size of a
saucer, and one patch of damp soil gave a remarkably clear imprint of
the fibres of some material.

"Clever chaps, by George!" the sergeant remarked. "They've got brains
among them."

"How's that?" queried one of the police.

"They've tried the old duffers' dodge of blanketing the horses' hoofs.
Sort of thing that works, too, unless a man happens to have his eyes
well open. Luckily I've stumbled up against this sort of thing before."

The other man, who had his own ideas about the matter, nodded his head,
but otherwise made no comment.

About ten o'clock the troopers debouched from the trees into a low-lying
stretch of land. One could not call it a gully; it was more of a
depression, a fault in the earth due to some local subsidence. On the
nearest ridge a prospector's hut was perched, from the chimney of which
a wisp of smoke ascended. When one of the mounted men dropped from the
saddle and opened the door he found no one in charge, though a dinner
was merrily simmering away on the fire.

"Whoever he is he can't be far away," the sergeant commented. "He
wouldn't leave his dinner unless he was handy. Have a look for him,
boys. He might be able to tell us something."

The men scattered in different directions down the depression, and
presently a shout from one of them announced that the prospector had
been found. He came toiling slowly up the slope, side by side with his
discoverer. He was a small wiry man, with a heavy iron-grey beard, and
his age, as well as one could guess, was something near to sixty.