Marks on this showed like marks on hard butter.
Suddenly Tom's attention was riveted by something directly under the apparent line of crossing, something which he had never seen the like of in all his woodland adventures since he had become a scout.

What he saw looked singularly out of place there.

Yet there it was printed in the hard crust of mud, and as clear as writing on a slate.

No human footprint was near it.

If a human being had made those marks that human being must have reached from the log to do it.