Another track trap, this one, a mud hole, with a pool of brown water in it's middle. It'd be silty, but it's water, animals would need to water even if laced with dirt, a little dirt hurt no one.

But Tod was curious about something else entirely. Sure the tracks of the beast they were after were here. And he had already marked the path, but what baffled him were boot tracks, and what looked like the site of a scuffle. As the hunters got ready to move one, Tod knelt beside the boot tracks, using his short "sword" to draw outlines around atleast seven individual boot prints. Maybe more. He duck walked carefully around the tracks, trying to get a sense of what was going on.

Slowly a mental image came to mind. There was a settlement close by, which had been raided a little less then a week ago. A few deaths and some injuries. Looks like the bandits who had done the raid met with some other group here. He wasn't sure if it was another bandit group, or a party from the town. He carefully moved, leaning down to look at some stains on the ground between some of the tracks. He narrowed his eyes, pulling his scarf down, sniffing at the stain, then boldly, taking his hand wiping at the stain a little and bringing it to his tongue, spitting it out a moment later. Blood. This meeting wasn't on good terms.

The hunter were calling him to hurry up, but Tod is by far to busy to listen to them. He spidered abit to the side, leaning out and judging the direction of travel. The one group from the town, the bandit group also, but their tracks from the town were older. The town had sent a posse. A fight had broken out. In his minds eye he could envision the fight. Knifes, short blades and clubs drawn, too close for guns. He found where a body had lain. Something had dragged it off. And another place where a body had fallen. So that meant atleast two people had been wounded bad enough they had been left, and atleast one of them had died on site. As he crabbed about, he finally found the right path. The remnants of the bandit group had headed away from the mudhole. He had their track. As the hunters called again he motioned, and called, to them, "No more then 4 hours, East by northeast. Keep following the six clawed print. You can take him...I want to check this out."

He got up, and walked off, this bandit group was raiding the frontier. He wanted to find them and stop that, it was part of his job.

They couldn't be that far ahead, the tracks were still somewhat fresh. He unshouldered his high-powered hunting rifle, based off of an old rifle model that used levers to load rounds, but this one had been wildcatted to fire a truly massive .454 winchester round, for when he needed to bring something big down. He picked up the pace, jogging, he needed to find these characters before they did any more damage.