patch of forest to the west. If he could gain this, the immediate pursuit would end, and there would be an interval of rest before the systematic man-hunt would begin. He ran across the hills, crackling dry with the drought, a strange, red-striped animal whose eyes flashed, who bent and ducked and crouched and sought hollows. Once only did he stop; this to the drumming approach of a guard, who had been able to obtain a horse. From the top of a knoll where he lay flat, Collins shot down the guard, then went on, leaving the well-trained horse standing with long bridle dropped to the ground by his rider’s reclining form. The halt had given him a | glimpse of other blue-clad guards scattered over the land to the rear; he threw himself on with fresh impetus, and it was gasping, with veins swollen, that he reached the fringe of the chaparral just as the sun, definitively breaking through the veil of morning vapours, began to pour its yellow heat pitilessly upon the yellow land.
He went on straight till among the pines, then
