Corridor after corridor of arrow straight trees on a flat substrate of volcanic tough. Each corridor identical to every other.
The compass the only meaningful distinction between north and south. The soil between the trees is a mixture of decomposed volcanic ash and pine duff that holds footprints for no more than a day in dry weather and erases them entirely after rain.
It had rained on the night of August 15th, not heavily, perhaps a third of an inch, but enough to scrub the trails clean of anything that had been there the day before.
The Blood Hounds brought in from the Teton County Sheriff on August 17th, two experienced trailing dogs, Rounder and Blue, and their handler, a 60-year-old former law enforcement officer named Chester Pike, who kept a cigarette behind his left ear at all times, were given Daniel’s hiking boots, which had been left behind in Cabin 7 in exchange for the heavier boots he wore on the trail.
