Dick went back over his tracks, and Downy followed slowly on hands and
knees, rescuing a hair or two from the edges of the rock or from a
bramble here and there.

'Fortunately that bag of yours shed its hair freely, old man,' he said.
'here's corroborative evidence anyhow. The bag went down all right--now
let's see what proof there is that it came up again.'

He returned to the hole in the rock and commenced another search, with
his nose very close to the ground, moving slowly, and peering diligently
into every little cranny amongst the stones. At length, after travelling
about ten yards in the direction of the spring in this fashion, be called
sharply:

'Hi, Dick What were you doing with that bag here?'

'Never had it nowhere near here,' answered Dick.

'Come, recollect; you put it down for a spell.' 'Didn't,' said Dick.
'Went straight along the side, an' dropped it into the shaft.'

'But look--there's hair on the top of this rock and a tuft on the corner.
Mustn't tell me a cow would roost there, my lad.'

'Don't care--'twasn't me.'

Downy sat on the rock for a moment in a brown study, and the crowd, which
had made itself comfort able in one end of the quarry and up one side,
sat in awed silence, watching him closely, like a theatre audience
waiting for some wonder-worker to perform his feats of magic.