There was nothing further to detain him. He paused only to prop the broken door in place, to prevent the intrusion of forest creatures, and then quit the cabin and struck off across the clearing.

Where his new quest would take him, he could not foresee. In all probability he would have to travel for some distance through the dense forest. Susy, the pony, was sure to prove more or less of a hindrance on such an expedition, and moreover she was tired after her long journey that day across the pass. He had previously unsaddled her, and she would do well enough by herself in the sheltered gully by the brook. So he mercifully left her behind, and set forth on foot.

The trail of the small shoes was easily followed. For a distance, the woman had continued her headlong course, but the underbrush was too thick for heedless going, and it was soon evident that she had been forced to moderate her pace. Still, she had kept on as fast as darkness and difficult ground permitted.

By the accumulated signs along the way, the policeman knew that she traveled without a light, groping her path as best she might. Frequently she had stumbled over some unseen obstruction and now and then walked blindly into a tree trunk or windfall. And in the denser thickets, spatterings of snow told how invisible branches had swished back in her face.

Dexter continued to use his pocket lamp, and he had eyes for everything. By the promptness with which she had recovered from each misstep, he gathered that she was an agile, quick-witted woman, probably young. It must have been a painful ordeal to go plunging through the thickets, but she had taken the punishment with apparent stoicism, scarcely pausing at any time in her hurried, free-swinging stride.

At one place, where she had touched the edge of a briary clump, Dexter found a wisp of hair caught on a thorn—three soft, wavy silken threads of a deep bronze shade. He pulled off his glove to twist the gossamer strand about his forefinger, and almost imagined a sensation of human warmth. And somehow he felt a sudden dislike for the work he had to do. There are times when police business calls for sterner qualities than simple courage and loyalty. The corporal was confronted by a duty that revolted every knightly instinct; nevertheless, he pushed onward at a faster pace. He could not shirk a disagreeable task and was resolved to have it over with as soon as possible.

The woman did not turn down towards the more open ground along the course of the 

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