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line in Woods Hole, to catch the ferry to the Vineyard, he’d seen one of those very trucks boarding ahead of him. The island was a rocky place, but not rocky enough to supply the demand of the stone workers.
    I followed the wall until I came to—what else?—a new stone wall defining the property line of Nunes’s neighbor. The new wall was high and beautifully constructed, a far cry from the old, rough, utilitarian one I’d been following.
    It was possible but unlikely, I thought, that the prowler came in from the road. If he parked a vehicle, it would be seen; if he walked from some far parking area, he’d still have to avoid being seen by some night driver.
    I walked east along the new wall, admiring its workmanship while looking for any indication that someone had come over it. I saw no such suggestion, and though I am no Abraham Mahsimba I can cut a little sign if required.
    The stream bubbled out from under the wall through a nicely shaped stone arch as it entered Nunes’s land. I crossed it with the help of a fallen log and went into the woods on the far side until I came to the old wall Nunes had mentioned. Here it was harder to tell just where an intruder might have entered since the wall was so old and broken that it offered no interference to any traveler, coming or going, and because much of the ground was covered with leaves and needles that could hide the footprints of any careful walker.
    But what walker could be so careful at night, when he could show no light to guide his way and could only guess when he disturbed the earth with his step? We’d had recent rain, and I saw no spoor as I walked between the trees and around patches of undergrowth, stopping often to study the ground and look around me for whatever the prowler might have seen had he come this way.
    When I came to the ancient way I noted no tracks. Even had there been some, I’d not have known whether they were those of the prowler or of some innocent walker of old trails.
    I crossed the path and worked my way south, moving slowly, seeing no sign, until I came to the old mill pond. A pair of ducks watched me, then paddled across to the far side of the pond.
    Evening was approaching, and birdsongs were beginning. As I listened I thought of Bonzo, my brain-damaged friend, who loved fishing and birdsong above all things, and of friends who had returned from Africa with stories of their wonder at the night sounds of the bush: the chatter and cheep and howls of monkeys and birds, the cowlike moo of hyenas, the bass grunts of hippos and the occasional trumpet of an elephant, the splash of crocs near the riverbank.
    Circling the pond, I studied the soft soil surrounding it and finally, after recrossing the stream over the old mill gates in the dam, I found the sign I’d been seeking. The prowler had come onto Nunes’s land from the woods to the south, along a path that followed the stream and led through the state forest behind the fenced land belonging to Nunes’s southern neighbor. He’d then gone up through the meadow behind Nunes’s outbuilding, done his work, and returned whence he’d come. Behind him, in a small patch of dirt he’d left a clear print of a medium-sized, low-heeled shoe that could have belonged to either a man or a woman. The soil was soft but the print wasn’t too deep, which suggested someone of little weight. No matter, since small people could be as dangerous as large ones.
    I followed his trail by the edge of the stream, along the old path that had probably originally led to the mill, and noted that the farther the intruder was from Nunes’s land, the more careless he’d been with his track. A half mile or so to the south I came to the Edgartown–West Tisbury Road, where the stream flowed through a culvert and bubbled on toward the Tisbury Great Pond.
    There were houses in sight both ways along the road, and there were driveways leading off it to unseen