Doc Locate Clues

Doc's great bronze form pivoted quickly. His golden eyes seemed to give the surrounding shrubbery the briefest of inspections, but not even the misplaced position of a grass blade escaped their notice.

He saw a caterpillar which had been knocked from a leaf so recently it still squirmed to get off its back, on which it had landed. He saw grass which had been stepped on, slowly straightening. The direction in which this grass was bent showed him the course pursued by the feet which had borne it down.

Doc followed the trail. His going was as silent as a breeze-swept puff of bronze smoke. A running man could hardly have moved as swiftly as Doc covered this minute trail.

Things that showed him the trail were microscopic. One with faculties less developed than Doc's would have been hopelessly baffled. The slight deposit of dust atop leaves, scraped off by the fleeing Squint and his companion, would have escaped an ordinary eye. But such marks were all the clews Doc needed.

Squint and his aide had escaped from the factory grounds through a hole they had clipped in the high woven wire fence. Bushes concealed the spot. Doc Savage eased through.

- The Land of Terror (1933) Chapter 2