A squirrel stirred at times, sliding round a trunk, or scampering across the dry leaves.
Occasionally a pig grunted and moved farther into the wood.

But the place was very quiet, and I do not know how it was that I surprised Clon instead of being surprised by him.
He was walking along the path before me with his eyes on the ground--walking so slowly, and with his lean frame so bent that I might have supposed him ill if I had not remarked the steady movement of his head from right to left, and the alert touch with which he now and again displaced a clod of earth or a cluster of leaves.

By-and-by he rose stiffly, and looked round him suspiciously; but by that time I had slipped behind a trunk, and was not to be seen; and after a brief interval he went back to his task, stooping over it more closely, if possible, than before, and applying himself with even greater care.
By that time I had made up my mind that he was tracking someone.

But whom?
I could not make a guess at that.

I only knew that the plot was thickening, and began to feel the eagerness of the chase.