Following up the track to some deep impervious woodland, in which it was again lost, he would make a circuit of many miles round its verge, with or without the pony, in order to make sure that his quarry had not gone on, and here an intimate acquaintance with its habits, and the passes through which it would be likely to emerge, saved him many an hour of fruitless search. Ere the sun was high he had so contracted the circle, by ascertaining where the stag was _not_, that he could point out the very copse, almost the very thicket, in which it lay ensconced. Again to use woodsman's language, he had fairly "harboured his deer."
Then Rube's responsibility was over, and his day's work done.
Thus, it fell out, that on a cool grey morning, late in harvest, our harbourer, stooping and prying over a level glade of turf by the water-side, in the deep shadows of Horner Wood, came to a stop; and, kneeling down, began to examine very closely a track that seemed to have crossed the stream, and broken into a gallop towards the hill. It was no cloven foot; and, consequently, neither deer nor devil, as Rube observed to himself, with a grim smile; but the hoof-mark of a horse, shod with iron, and going at speed, nor was this in any way remarkable, but that the shoes were forged by no West-country blacksmith, and Rube was far too practised a woodsman to pass such a slot without inquiry or remark.
"A horse," he muttered, "and a good one. Here's a stride of nigh six yards, and every foot down at once in a ring I could cover with my hat! And, here again, when the rider's hand turned him from that boggy bit, see how he cut the moss out of the bank, and sprang back to the turf as light as a brocket. But them shoes was never welded this side Taunton town. That's what beats _me_! Parson Gale? Well, the Parson it might be, only this is an up-country horse for sure. Up-country rider, too, or he would have turned into the wood 'stead of keeping the track. No. He's not heading for Exmoor, isn't this one. May be he'll double back before sunup, and I'll fresh find him here in the coombe, if I only keep quiet and lie close!"
So Rube put his ear to the ground, listened, grinned, took a suck at his flask, and coiled himself down, like some beast of prey, on the watch.