Page:Life Story of an Otter.djvu/201

Rh hope of coming on the tracks. Most carefully the eager eyes examined every foot of sand visible between the rowan-trees as, slowly on hands and knees, the miller advanced towards the bend which commands the likeliest spot of all. There twenty feet below he saw a salmon lying and, with the same glance, marked the tracks beside it. The descent of the scarp was nearly as perilous as the crossing of the current, but he accomplished both without mishap, and a few seconds later was crouching beside the footprints.

'By the life of me they're his, and not many hours old.'

His face, no less than his agitated voice, showed the wild excitement that possessed him as he rose and made down the wood as fast as he could lay foot to ground. When he reached the mill he was almost at his last gasp, but he bridled and mounted the pony, which he urged to a gallop through the open gate and up the stony lane. He was on his way to the squire.

As he rode through the hamlet, where the clatter of the hoofs brought the villagers to door and window, his cries of 'Tracked un!' roused man and boy to a fever of excitement, and sent the sexton in hot haste to the belfry to apprize the country-side. The miller, however, leaving