EVERY moment was precious. Yet Jolie found time for one last look at the little camp on the mountain top before they stole down the path to the woods-encircled meadow below the summit where the horses grazed. Within a few minutes they were mounted and away.
They followed no trail. They descended the upper slopes of Sani'gilagi by a steep and rocky way where even the sure-footed Chicasaw ponies were sometimes in danger of falling. The moon shone fitfully. Sometimes the forest around them was bathed in ghostly light, and twice Almayne halted them until drifting clouds obscured the moon once more.
There were many alarms. Again and again Jolie saw dim forms moving amid the trees, but always these proved to be small bands of deer. Once they were close to disaster and were saved only because Little Mink, the taller of the two Muskogee warriors, was swifter of foot than a Cherokee sentinel who saw them and sped away through the moonlit woods.
Jolie saw the beginning of that race but not the end. She knew only that after a time Little Mink reappeared at Almayne's side and nodded in reply to a short, guttural question of the hunter.
