He sent the car slowly down it.

For seventy yards the roadway was hard, or stony; then came a patch of dust, smooth and unmarked by a wheel-track.

Any vehicle going along the road must have passed over it, and a wave of disappointment submerged Tinker's spirit; the road had seemed so very much the right one.

He stopped the car, and stared blankly at the patch of dust.

Suddenly his quick eye caught a curious marking on its surface.