Now he saw clearly that the girl had fled, and he was powerless to pursue at the distance she might now have reached, the more so as he could not tell which way she had taken.

He would have left his live stock, but the helpless old woman, whose life depended on his care, he dared not leave.
He stood and considered, his mind working rapidly under a stress of emotion such as perhaps it had never known before--certainly not since the first strong impulses of his youth had died within his cautious heart.
Then he remembered that Sissy had walked about the previous day, and perhaps the dog was only on the scent of yesterday's meanderings.

He took the animal along the top of the open space, urging him to find another track, and at last the dog ran down again by the side of the stream.

Bates followed to the vicinity of the house, no wiser than he had been at first.
The dog stopped under the end window of the house where old Cameron fell, and scratched among the leaves on the fresh fallen earth.

Bates was reminded of the associations of the fatal spot.