Vaughn at her door. Trove and Tunk Hosely went with the officers
down a lane to the pasture and thence into the wood by a path they
followed that night to and from the shanty. They discovered
nothing new, save one remarkable circumstance that baffled Trove
and renewed the waning suspicion of the men of the law. On almost
a straight line from bush to barn were tracks of a man that showed
plainly where they came out of the grass upon the garden soil.
Now, the strange part of it lay in this fact: the boots of Sidney
Trove exactly fitted the tracks. They followed the footprints
carefully into the meadow-grass and up to the stalk of mullen.
Near the top of it was the abandoned home of the spider and around
it were the four snares Trove had observed, now full of prey.
"Do not disturb the grass here," said Trove, "and I will prove to
you that the tracks were made before the night in question. Do you
see the four webs?"
"Yes," said the attorney..
"The tracks go under them," said Trove, "and must, therefore, have
been made before the webs. I will prove to you that the webs were
spun before two o'clock of the day before yesterday. At that hour
I saw the spinner die.
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