A footprint believed to belong to missing four-year-old boy August “Gus” Lamont has sparked fresh hope in the desperate search which now entering its fifth day — but police warn time is running out.

The print was discovered on Tuesday night, just 500m from where the little boy was last seen playing outside his family’s remote sheep station, 40km south of Yunta in South Australia’s Mid North region.

The alarm was raised just after 5pm on Saturday, sparking a massive search across the isolated 60sqkm property surrounded by outback-like conditions and dense scrub.

“We’re buoyed by that fact,” Superintendent Mark Syrus said in confirming the footprint matched the boots Gus was wearing when he vanished.

Forty police cadets have travelled from Adelaide to join the search, which now includ

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