Constable Dedham Vale Morning

neither Frodo nor Merry could make out their shapes for certain; yet something told them that there, far below, were Black Riders assembling on the Road beyond the foot of the hill.'Yes,' said Strider, whose keener sight left him in no doubt. 'The enemy is here!'Hastily they crept away and slipped down the north side of the hill to find their companions.Sam and Peregrin had not been idle. They had explored the small dell and the waited and explored the ground down here myself,' he said, hurrying off to the spring to examine the footprints.'It is just as I feared,' he said, when he came back. 'Sam and Pippin have trampled the soft ground, and the marks are spoilt or confused. Rangers have been here lately. It is they who surrounding slopes. Not far away they found a spring of clear water in the hillside, and near it footprints not more than a day or two old. In the dell itself they found recent traces of a fire, and other signs of a hasty camp. There were some fallen rocks on the edge of the dell nearest to the hill. Behind them Sam came upon a small store of firewood neatly stacked.'I wonder if old Gandalf has been here,' he said to Pippin. 'Whoever it was put this stuff here meant to come back it seems.'Strider was greatly interested in these discoveries. 'I wish I had