Page:Cornelia Meigs-The Pirate of Jasper Peak.djvu/203

 stared at it a moment, then ran splashing through the stream to look again. Close beside his own footprints and fresher even than they, were the  marks of moccasined feet, as plain as those footprints of the big dog, Nicholas, that he had seen  once, as plain and much more ominous. Some person had been following him through the wood,  tracking him so closely and eagerly that he had  not taken the pains to cover his own trail.

Hugh stood still and looked and listened with every nerve tense, but there was nothing to be  seen, nothing to be heard. The forest was as silent as a forest in a dream. He crossed the brook again, and climbed the hill hastily. More than once he turned his head quickly and looked  back over his shoulder, but there was never a stirring leaf nor a snapping twig to prove that he  was being followed. He made his way homeward in the straightest line possible, thinking deeply all the way.

Time passed, the weather grew colder and the daylight shorter, but still the pirates made no  move. Only the blue haze of their smoke going