“Robbed?  I didn’t say I wuz robbed,” and she cackled.  “But the robbers had the best av intintions when they came to me,” and she related at length her experience with the two who broke in when her Cow was reported sold.  She laughed over their enjoyment of the Lung Balm, and briefly told how the big man was sulky and the short, broad one was funny.  Their black beards, the “big wan” with his wounded head, his left-handedness and his accidental exposure of the three fingers of the right hand, all were fully talked over.

“When was it, Granny?”

“Och, shure an’ it wuz about three years apast.”

Then after having had his lungs treated, old Caleb left Granny and set out to do some very hard thinking.

There had been robberies all around for the last four years; There was no clue but this:  They were all of the same character; nothing but cash was taken, and the burglars seemed to have inside knowledge of the neighbourhood, and timed all their visits to happen just after the householder had come into possession of a roll of bills.

As soon as Caleb turned in at the de Neuville gate, Yan, acting on a belated thought, said: 

“Boys, you go on to camp; I’ll be after you in five minutes.”  He wanted to draw those tracks in the mud and try to trail that man, so went back to the grave.

He studied the marks most carefully and by opening out the book he was able to draw the boot tracks life-size, noting that each had three rows of small hobnails on the heel, apparently put in at home because so irregular, while the sole of the left was worn into a hole.  Then he studied the hand tracks, selected the clearest, and was drawing the right hand when something odd caught his attention.

Yes!  It appeared in all the impressions of that hand—­the middle finger was gone.

[Illustration:  The three-fingered hand-print]

Yan followed the track on the road a little way, but at the corner it turned southward and was lost in the grass.

As he was going back to camp he overtook Caleb also returning.

“Mr. Clark,” he said.  “I went back to sketch those tracks, and do you know—­that man had only three fingers on his right hand?”

“Consarn me!” said Caleb.  “Are you sure?”

“Come and see for yourself.”

Yes!  It surely was true, and Caleb on the road back said, “Yan, don’t say a word of this to the others just now.”

The old Trapper went to the Pogue house at once.  He found the tracks repeated in the dust near the door, but they certainly were not made by Dick.  On a line was a pair of muddy trousers drying.