"You'll excuse my waiting?
It ain't a quarter of a mile back by the road, and I'm going a bit farther on, inspecting." Quest slipped something into his hand and the little party left the track, crossed the road, scrambled down a bank and spread out.

In front of them was a slope some hundreds of feet high, closely overgrown with dwarf trees and mountain shrubs.

It was waste land, uncultivated and uninhabited.
Quest made a careful search of the shrubs and ground close to the spot which Horan had indicated.

He pointed out to his two companions the spot where the grass was beaten down, and a few yards farther off where a twig had been broken off from some overhanging trees, as though a man had pushed his way through.
"This may have been done by the police search," he remarked, "or it may not.

Don't spread out too far, girls, and go slowly.