down the rock in a wild scramble, landed on all-fours among the brambles, picked himself up and started down the opposite side of the hill at a run.
He was quite unconscious of the fact that he had dropped Oscar’s rifle and had left it behind him. He never had any idea of where he went or in what direction. He ran until he could drag his leaden feet no longer, then he lay panting upon the ground until he could get up and run again. Finally he became so exhausted that he could only walk and had to stop to rest every few minutes, but still he pressed obstinately on, determined to get somewhere, anywhere.
Once he found himself, not knowing how he got there, floundering at the edge of a wide marsh and noticed footmarks in the soft ground beside him as though some great creature of the woods had passed there not very long before. The prints were very large and clear in the wet earth, but he scarcely noticed them so far gone was he in weariness and despair. Slowly he dragged himself on, past a dense poplar thicket, over a dried-up watercourse, up a hill, through the close
