Three weeks later, limping along a road a hundred and fifty miles south of the city, John Collins stopped, listened intently with frowning brows, and then, climbing up a bank, crawled into the chaparral and instantly fell asleep.
In three weeks he had gone a hundred and fifty miles in a straight line, but he had travelled probably a thousand—running, trotting, doubling, dodging, ambushing, killing. His goal had been to the east; time and time again he had made a desperate dash for the Sierra, snow-capped in the distance, the Sierra, with its profundity of forest, its intimacy of valleys, its secrecy of meadows, with its running water, its game, its sheep-herders, half-mad with solitude; and each time he had been headed off and slid on farther down the coast. But this morning he had seen before him a hill-range coming high-
