plough horses still toiling up the hill, and behind them, strung out, the two posses. Behind, there were more horsemen; and to the right and the left, horsemen; the whole world seemed aroused, converging upon him. He picked up his sagging beast between his knees, and galloped into the dusk of the cañon.
It led away from the hill he had for goal. He went on half a mile, left his horse in the brush, went on afoot another half mile, leaving a fairly visible but diminishing trail, then, crawling through the underbrush, doubled back along the walls of the cañon, toward the south.
Crawling, springing from stone to stone, always in the brush, covering his rare tracks carefully, he climbed diagonally up across the face of the hills for several hours; and the afternoon sun struck him in a warm wave as at last he came out upon a round plateau, crowned with a circle of black pines; running to the centre, he thrust his face into the cool tufts of water-cress and drank, in long sucking gulps, like a horse. The boy had told him right.
