The old scar of the fire-break was there still, but merging into the natural .contours of the hill under the weight of almost twenty years of growth. He had been prepared to wait for several days (a good many empty bottles and cans, hastily buried in a shallow pit, and a number of full bottles and foodstuffs in a knapsack, and a rolled-up sleeping-bag close to hand beneath the bush, would readily testify to that) but it had not been necessary.