"No, it was not."

"Must have been," repeated Aaron, chewing.

"I tell you it was not. I knew--" James stopped. He suddenly wondered
how much he ought to tell the man, how much Doctor Gordon had told him.

Aaron chewed imperturbably, but a sly look came into his face. "I have
eyes, and they see, and ears, and they hear," he said, after an odd
Scriptural fashion, "but don't you tell me nothin', Doctor Elliot.
Either I take what I get from the fountain-head, or I makes my own
conclusions that I can't help. Don't you tell me nothin'. S'pose we look
an' see ef there's footprints that show anythin'."

Aaron flashed the lantern, all the time carefully shading it from the
house windows, over the walk which led to the front door and the piazza.
James followed him. "Well," said Aaron, "there's been somebody here,
but, with snow like this, it might have been a monkey or a rhinoceros
or an alligator. You can't make nothin' of them tracks. But they do go
out to the road, and turn toward Stanbridge."

"Suppose we--" began James. He was about to suggest following the
prints, when he remembered Doctor Gordon's injunction to the contrary.

However, Aaron anticipated him. "Might as well leave the devil alone,"
said he. "It might have been the old one himself, for all we can tell by
them tracks. You had better go back to bed, Doctor Elliot. You ain't got
much on. It ain't near breakfast time yet. Better go back to bed."