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could not crawl; he could not push a log across. Any solid thing touching that
smooth yellow sand would be grasped and sucked down. To prove this he seized a
long pole and, reaching down from the high bank, thrust it into the stream.
Right there near shore there apparently was no bottom to the treacherous
quicksand. He abandoned any hope of crossing the river. Probably for miles up
and down it would be just the same as here. Before leaving the bank he tied
his hat upon the pole and lifted enough water to quench his thirst. Then he
worked his way back to where thinner growth made advancement easier, and kept
on up-stream till the shadows were so deep he could not see. Feeling around
for a place big enough to stretch out on, he lay down. For the time being he
was as safe there as he would have been beyond in the Rim Rock. He was tired,
though not exhausted, and in spite of the throbbing pain in his arm he dropped
at once into sleep.
Chapter XII
Some time during the night Duane awoke. A stillness seemingly so thick and
heavy as to have substance blanketed the black willow brake. He could not see
a star or a branch or tree-trunk or even his hand before his eyes. He lay
there waiting, listening, sure that he had been awakened by an unusual sound.
Ordinary noises of the night in the wilderness never disturbed his rest. His
faculties, like those of old fugitives and hunted creatures, had become
trained to a marvelous keenness. A long low breath of slow wind moaned through
the willows, passed away; some stealthy, soft-footed beast trotted by him in
the darkness; there was a rustling among dry leaves; a fox barked lonesomely
in the distance. But none of these sounds had broken his slumber.
Suddenly, piercing the stillness, came a bay of a bloodhound. Quickly Duane
sat up, chilled to his marrow. The action made him aware of his crippled arm.
Then came other bays, lower, more distant. Silence enfolded him again, all the
more oppressive and menacing in his suspense. Bloodhounds had been put on his
trail, and the leader was not far away. All his life Duane had been familiar
with bloodhounds; and he knew that if the pack surrounded him in this
impenetrable darkness he would be held at bay or dragged down as wolves
dragged a stag. Rising to his feet, prepared to flee as best he could, he
waited to be sure of the direction he should take.
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The leader of the hounds broke into cry again, a deep, full-toned, ringing
bay, strange, ominous, terribly significant in its power. It caused a cold
sweat to ooze out all over Duane's body. He turned from it, and with his
uninjured arm outstretched to feel for the willows he groped his way along. As
it was impossible to pick out the narrow passages, he had to slip and squeeze
and plunge between the yielding stems. He made such a crashing that he no
longer heard the baying of the hounds. He had no hope to elude them. He meant
to climb the first cottonwood that he stumbled upon in his blind flight. But
it appeared he never was going to be lucky enough to run against one. Often he
fell, sometimes flat, at others upheld by the willows. What made the work so
hard was the fact that he had only one arm to open a clump of close-growing
stems and his feet would catch or tangle in the narrow crotches, holding him
fast. He had to struggle desperately. It was as if the willows were clutching
hands, his enemies, fiendishly impeding his progress. He tore his clothes on
sharp branches and his flesh suffered many a prick. But in a terrible
earnestness he kept on until he brought up hard against a cottonwood tree.
There he leaned and rested. He found himself as nearly exhausted as he had
ever been, wet with sweat, his hands torn and burning, his breast laboring,
his legs stinging from innumerable bruises. While he leaned there to catch his
breath he listened for the pursuing hounds. For a long time there was no sound
from them. This, however, did not deceive him into any hopefulness. There were
bloodhounds that bayed often on a trail, and others that ran mostly silent.
The former were more valuable to their owner and the latter more dangerous to
the fugitive. Presently Duane's ears were filled by a chorus of short ringing
yelps. The pack had found where he had slept, and now the trail was hot.
Satisfied that they would soon overtake him, Duane set about climbing the
cottonwood, which in his condition was difficult of ascent.
It happened to be a fairly large tree with a fork about fifteen feet up, and
branches thereafter in succession. Duane climbed until he got above the
enshrouding belt of blackness. A pale gray mist hung above the brake, and
through it shone a line of dim lights. Duane decided these were bonfires made
along the bluff to render his escape more difficult on that side. Away round
in the direction he thought was north he imagined he saw more fires, but, as
the mist was thick, he could not be sure. While he sat there pondering the
matter, listening for the hounds, the mist and the gloom on one side
lightened; and this side he concluded was east and meant that dawn was near.
Satisfying himself on this score, he descended to the first branch of the
tree.
His situation now, though still critical, did not appear to be so hopeless
as it had been. The hounds would soon close in on him, and he would kill them
or drive them away. It was beyond the bounds of possibility that any men could
have followed running hounds through that brake in the night. The thing that
worried Duane was the fact of the bonfires. He had gathered from the words of
one of his pursuers that the brake was a kind of trap, and he began to believe
there was only one way out of it, and that was along the bank where he had
entered, and where obviously all night long his pursuers had kept fires
burning. Further conjecture on this point, however, was interrupted by a
crashing in the willows and the rapid patter of feet.
Underneath Duane lay a gray, foggy obscurity. He could not see the ground,
nor any object but the black trunk of the tree. Sight would not be needed to
tell him when the pack arrived. With a pattering rush through the willows the
hounds reached the tree; and then high above crash of brush and thud of heavy
paws rose a hideous clamor. Duane's pursuers far off to the south would hear
that and know what it meant. And at daybreak, perhaps before, they would take
a short cut across the brake, guided by the baying of hounds that had treed
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their quarry.
It wanted only a few moments, however, till Duane could distinguish the
vague forms of the hounds in the gray shadow below. Still he waited. He had no
shots to spare. And he knew how to treat bloodhounds. Gradually the obscurity
lightened, and at length Duane had good enough sight of the hounds for his
purpose. His first shot killed the huge brute leader of the pack. Then, with
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