Other men ran to him, and another far down the track repeated the shout and the gesture to another far in his rear; this man took it up, and shouted and waved to a fourth man, and so they passed the signal back to town.

There came, almost immediately three long, loud whistles from a mill near the station, and the embankment grew black with people pouring out from town, while the searchers came running from the fields and woods and underbrush on both sides of the railway.
Briscoe paused for the last time; then he began to walk slowly toward the embankment.
The track lay level and straight, not dimming in the middle distances, the rails converging to points, both northwest and southeast, in the clean-washed air, like examples of perspective in a child's drawing-book.

About seventy miles to the west and north lay Rouen; and, in the same direction, nearly six miles from where the signal was given, the track was crossed by a road leading directly south to Six-Cross-Roads.
The embankment had been newly ballasted with sand.

What had been discovered was a broad brown stain on the south slope near the top.
There were smaller stains above and below; none beyond it to left or right; and there were deep boot-prints in the sand.

Men were examining the place excitedly, talking and gesticulating.