He stopped the car,
and stared blankly at the patch of dust. Suddenly his quick eye caught
a curious marking on its surface. He jumped down, and bent over it:
sure enough, the patch had been brushed and smoothed with a bough.
He hurried the car back to the corner of the road, and by entreaties,
persuasion, cajoling, a five-franc piece, and even--great
concession!--a kiss, he wrung from the little shepherdess a promise
that she would wait till dark if need were, stop every motor-car that
came from the direction of the frontier, and say, "The kidnappers have
gone up this road." He was assured that his father would borrow or
hire a motorcar, and follow in it.
Then he turned the car for Camporossa. Three hundred yards up the road
he came to another patch of dust, and saw the wheel-tracks of the
carriage deep and plain. He sent along the car as hard as he dared,
for, as the road grew steeper along the hillside, it grew stonier and
stonier, thanks to its serving, like most Italian hill roads, as a
watercourse to carry off the rain from the hills. A very slow and
painful jolting brought him among the olive groves of Camporossa and
into that little town.
He stopped before the little Inn, and was served with milk and bread
and fruit.
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