“I never heard of anything sae surprising,” said Mrs. Duncan.

“It’s a rare sight to watch them, and no one ever made a picture of a thing like that before, I’m for thinking,” said Freckles earnestly.

“Na,” said Mrs. Duncan.  “Ye can be pretty sure there didna.  The Bird Woman must have word in some way, if ye walk the line and I walk to town and tell her.  If ye think ye can wait until after supper, I am most sure ye can gang yoursel’, for Duncan is coming home and he’d be glad to watch for ye.  If he does na come, and na ane passes that I can send word with today, I really will gang early in the morning and tell her mysel’.”

Freckles took his lunch and went to the swamp.  He walked and watched eagerly.  He could find no trace of anything, yet he felt a tense nervousness, as if trouble might be brooding.  He examined every section of the wire, and kept watchful eyes on the grasses of the swale, in an effort to discover if anyone had passed through them; but he could discover no trace of anything to justify his fears.

He tilted his hat brim to shade his face and looked for his chickens.  They were hanging almost beyond sight in the sky.

“Gee!” he said.  “If I only had your sharp eyes and convenient location now, I wouldn’t need be troubling so.”

He reached his room and cautiously scanned the entrance before he stepped in.  Then he pushed the bushes apart with his right arm and entered, his left hand on the butt of his favorite revolver.  Instantly he knew that someone had been there.  He stepped to the center of the room, closely scanning each wall and the floor.  He could find no trace of a clue to confirm his belief, yet so intimate was he with the spirit of the place that he knew.

How he knew he could not have told, yet he did know that someone had entered his room, sat on his benches, and walked over his floor.  He was surest around the case.  Nothing was disturbed, yet it seemed to Freckles that he could see where prying fingers had tried the lock.  He stepped behind the case, carefully examining the ground all around it, and close beside the tree to which it was nailed he found a deep, fresh footprint in the spongy soil—­a long, narrow print, that was never made by the foot of Wessner.  His heart tugged in his breast as he mentally measured the print, but he did not linger, for now the feeling arose that he was being watched.  It seemed to him that he could feel the eyes of some intruder at his back.  He knew he was examining things too closely:  if anyone were watching, he did not want him to know that he felt it.