"If we had a hound we wouldn't have all this trouble," he said.
"But, seeing as we haven't, we'll have to be our own dogs," retorted Ned. "I guess we can manage it."
They followed the footprints of the one Chinaman for a mile or more, and then they came to an end with an abruptness that was surprising, particularly as the last one was plainly to be seen in a patch of soft mud.
"Well, he evidently went up in a balloon," announced Bart.
"It does look so, unless he had a pair of wings in his pocket," supplemented Ned.
Frank went on ahead, looking with sharp eyes, for a recurrence of the prints. He went so far into the woods that Bart called to him.
"I don't know," replied Frank. "I'm going to look--"
He stopped so suddenly that his chums were alarmed and ran forward to where he was. They found him staring at some marks in the earth, and the marks were those they sought--the footprints of the Chinese.
"How in the world did he ever get over that space without touching the ground?" inquired Ned. "He must be a wonder, or else have a pair of those seven-league-boots I used to read about in a fairy book, when I was a kid."
"Look there!" exclaimed Bart, pointing up to a tree branch overhead.
"Horse hair!" exclaimed Ned. "I didn't know a horse could switch his tail so high."
"Horses nothing!" retorted Bart. "That's hair from the queue of a Chinaman, or I'll eat my hat!"
"But what's it doing up in the tree?" demanded Frank.
"That's how he fooled us," replied Bart. "He thought some one might trail him, and when he got to a good place, he took to the trees. They are thick enough here so he could swing himself along from limb to limb, and, after he covered twenty-five feet or more, he let himself down. It was a good Chinese trick, but we got on to it. His pigtail caught in a branch. I guess it hurt him some."
"Yes, here are his footsteps again, as plain as ever," said Frank, pointing to where the queer marks were to be seen.
"But, say, we've forgotten one thing," said Ned suddenly.
"We haven't looked for Fenn's footprints. All along we've been paying attention to only the marks made by the Chink. Now where does Fenn come in? This Chinese fellow couldn't carry him; could he?"
"Not unless the Chink was one of the gigantic Chinese wrestlers I've read about," admitted Bart. "That's so, Ned. We have forgotten all about Fenn's footprints."