They pinned together the backs of two letters, and Toole, with his surgical scissors, cut the pattern to fit exactly into the impression; and he and Lowe, with great care, pencilled in the well-defined marks of the great hob-nails, and a sort of seam or scar across the heel.
[Illustration: Footprint.] 'Twas pretty much after this fashion.

It was in a slight dip in the ground where the soil continued soft.

They found it in two other places coming up to the fatal spot, from the direction of the Magazine.

And it was traceable on for some twenty yards more faintly; then, again, very distinctly, where--a sort of ditch interposing--a jump had been made, and here it turned down towards the park wall and the Chapelizod road, still, however, slanting in the Dublin direction.
In the hollow by the park wall it appeared again, distinctly; and here it was plain the transit of the wall had been made, for the traces of the mud were evident enough upon its surface, and the mortar at top was displaced, and a little tuft of grass in the mud, left by the clodded shoesole.

Here the fellow had got over.
They followed, and, despairing of finding it upon the road, they diverged into the narrow slip of ground by the river bank, and just within the park-gate, in a slight hollow, the clay of which was still impressible, they found the track again.