That was exactly what happened. The buggy was found, abandoned, and the occupants of the big car, leaving one man to guard it, proceeded to follow the thief’s trail.
From that time on, it would have been difficult to coax either one of the two boys to turn back, so intensely interested did they become in everything that pertained to this actual application of their tracking game. Hugh quickly realized that the police knew next to nothing about following a woods’ trail. Had they been alone, they would surely have been all at sea at the point where the wily rascal had taken to running the length of fallen tree-trunks, jumping off at the ends into thickets of brush, or on flat rocks where there would be no trail left to betray his course.
But all this was what Billy called “just pie” for boys who had been drilled in the secrets of scout-craft. When they ventured to suggest to the officers how easy it was to “blind” the trail by this sort of clever tactics the Chief ordered them to lead off, promising to follow closely with his men.
It was a proud day for Hugh and Billy when the police head thus showed his confidence in their ability. They felt that they were being amply rewarded for all the time spent in the past in gaining this knowledge of woodcraft.
Through the woods they led the party, every now and then stopping to make sure they were on the right track. In the end they came to an isolated house that was said to belong to a queer old farmer, who never had anything to do with his neighbors. A couple of savage dogs greeted their arrival, which the police would have shot in their tracks, only that the old man came on the scene, and chased the ugly brutes away.
When he heard what his visitors had to say, the farmer was positive that no one could have come to his place that day; nor had any one been near him for more than a week. But Hugh had heard the clamor, he claimed, of the dogs a quarter of an hour before his party reached the lonely farm; and he felt sure that the fugitive was concealed about the place right then.
So with Billy at his side, he conducted a careful search of the ground, and sure enough they discovered the tracks they sought, issuing from the woods and making straight for the little tumble-down old barn.