Certainly it had not been grass, for there was none.

Presently he heard the horse tramping along, and then he ran.

The mud was deep, and the sharp thorns made going difficult.

He came up with the horse, and at the same moment crossed a multitude of fresh horse-tracks.
He bent lower to examine them, and was alarmed to find that they had been made very recently, even since it had ceased raining.

They were tracks of well-shod horses.