ched the thorn hedge.

A belt of peat, checkered by white tufts of wild cotton, ran back from
the road, and a wire fence joined the hedge at a right angle. Some of
the posts had fallen and lengths of wire lay about. Jim looked at the
wire thoughtfully, and then went on to the spot where broken glass and
torn up soil marked the scene of the accident. Then he stopped again
and lighted his pipe. In the Canadian woods he had now and then
trusted to his rifle to supply his food, and tracking large game trains
one's observation. One must guess an animal's movements by very small
signs. A broken twig or a disturbed stone tells one much. Jim looked
for some such clew that might help him, so to speak, to reconstruct the
accident.

He remembered a sudden jolt and the front wheels skidding. They had
obviously struck something, and when he got the car straight had
skidded again the other way. The marks the tires had made indicated
this, and he examined the neighboring ground. The silverweed that
covered the peaty soil between the road and ditch was not much crushed.
He had, as he remembered, not gone far on that side before he, for a
moment, recovered control of the car. The real trouble began when it
swerved again and ran across the road. Something had caught the wheels
and interfered with the steering.

Jim looked for a big stone, but could find none; besides, it was
improbable that he had hit the stone twice, and sitting down by the
overturned car he thoughtfully finished his pipe. The car must be got
out of the ditch, but this was not important, and he dwelt upon the
fencing wire; he had a hazy notion that the obstacle he had struck was
flexible. By and by he heard a step, and Jake came up.

"I don't know if you ought to be about," the latter said. "It will be
an awkward job to get the car into the road."

"I'm not bothering about the car," Jim replied. "I want to find out
why she ran into the ditch."

"You don't know, then?"

Jim indicated the wheel-marks and told Jake about the skidding. "She
went off at an angle and I couldn't pull her round," he concluded.

"Do you expect to find the steering-gear broken?"

"Not unless it broke after she skidded."

Jake gave him a keen glance. "I begin to see! Well, people sometimes
find trouble coming to them when they won't leave things alone. But
what kind of a clew do you expect to get?"

"A mark on a thorn trunk; we'll look for one," said Jim. "Suppos