He is cautious and cunning and wary.

I must try to be the same." All that long summer's day Cuthbert prowled up and down the dell, searching for some trace, however slight, which should give him the clue, and searching in vain.

The only path where the undergrowth was in any way trodden was the one by which he and Robin alike approached the well, the old, half-obliterated track that once had been so freely used.

All around the sides of the dell, fern and bramble, hazel and undergrowth of all kinds, grew in wild confusion.

Search as he would, Cuthbert could find nothing like a path of any kind.