bare logs, a rough
hearth where a fire had once been built, and the rudest sort of bench
and table; and hurrying forth again, he looked doubtfully up and down
the glade in pursuit of some hint to guide him in his future researches.

Suddenly he received one. The thick wall of foliage which at first
glance revealed but the two outlets already traversed by him, showed
upon close inspection a third path, opening well behind the hut, and
leading, as he soon discovered, in an entirely opposite direction from
that which had taken him to West Side. Merely stopping to cast one
glance at the sun, which was still well overhead, he set out on this new
path. It was longer and much more intricate than the other. It led
through hollows and up steeps, and finally out into an open blackberry
patch, where it seemed to terminate. But a close study of the
surrounding bushes, soon disclosed signs of a narrow and thread-like
passage curving about a rocky steep. Entering this he presently found
himself drawn again into the woods, which he continued to traverse till
he came to a road cut through the heart of the forest, for the use of
the lumbermen. Here he paused. Should he turn to the right or left? He
decided to turn to the right. Keeping in the road, which was rough with
stones where it was not marked with the hoofs of both horses and cattle,
he walked for some distance. Then he emerged into open space again, and
discovered that he was on the hillside overlooking Monteith, and that by
a mile or two's further walk over the highway that was dimly to be
descried at the foot of the hill, he would reach the small station
devoted to the uses of the quarrymen that worked in this place.

There was no longer any further doubt that this route, and not the
other, had been the one taken by Mr. Mansell on that fatal afternoon.
But he was determined not to trust any further to mere surmises; so
hastening down the hill, he made his way in the direction of the
highway, meaning to take the walk alluded to, and learn for himself what
passengers had taken the train at this point on the Tuesday afternoon so
often mentioned.

But a barrier rose in his way. A stream which he had barely noticed in
the quick glance he threw over the landscape from the brow of the hill,
separated with quite a formidable width of water the hillside from the
road, and it was not till he wandered back for some distance along its
banks, that he found a bridge. The time thus lost w