Part 17 (1/2)
”You?”
”Exactly.”
”You, able to follow up a trail?”
”Why not?”
”Ah, well, since you are so confident and know so much more about it than I do, that's another thing; go ahead. I'll follow.”
It was easy to see that the old huntsman was vexed at my venturing to encroach upon his particular field of operations. Therefore, laughing inwardly, I waited for no second invitation and turned to the left, sure of coming upon the traces of the old woman, who, after having left the Count in the subterranean pa.s.sage, must have recrossed the plain to gain the mountain.
Sperver followed on behind me whistling with a.s.sumed indifference, and I could hear him muttering:
”The idea of looking for the she-wolf's tracks in the middle of the plain. Any one should know that she would follow along the edge of the forest, as she always does; but it seems she walks about now with her hands in her pockets, like a well-to-do citizen of Tubingen.”
I turned a deaf ear to all this, and kept on my way. Suddenly he gave an exclamation of surprise, and looking at me sharply:
”Gaston,” he said, ”you know more than you are willing to admit.”
”How do you mean, Gideon?”
”The track that it would have taken me a week to find, you have got at once. There is something behind this.”
”Where do you see it, then?”
”Come, don't pretend to be looking at your feet,” and pointing to a scarcely perceptible white streak at some distance ahead of us, he said:
”There it is.”
He started off at a gallop. I followed him, and a moment later we leaped from our saddles. It was indeed the Black Plague's track.
”I should like to know,” said Sperver, folding his arms, ”how the devil that trace came to be here!”
”Don't let that trouble you.”
”You're right, Gaston. Don't mind what I say. I talk nonsense sometimes.
The princ.i.p.al thing now is to find out where this track leads.”
The huntsman knelt on the snow. I was all ears, he all attention.
”It is a fresh track,” he said at the first glance; ”last night's. As I thought, Gaston, during the Count's last attack the hag was prowling about the Castle.”
Then examining it more carefully:
”She pa.s.sed here at about four o'clock this morning.”
”How do you know that?”
”The track is fresh, but there is sleet around it. Last night at twelve o'clock I went out to lock the doors, and sleet was falling then; there is none on this footprint, and therefore it must have been made since then.”