CHAPTER V
The Hunted Man
THE day was hot and windless with an unclouded sky, and memories of the dreadful yesterday but deepened the sense of to-day's serenity.
In flooding sunlight the woodlands basked and steamed, and a great stillness brooded over all the wilderness. Long before any sound audible to human ears disturbed the noonday hush, a bobcat sunning on a log in a glade to which no trail led, pricked ears, rose, glanced over-shoulder with a snarl, and—of a sudden—was no more there.
Perhaps two minutes later a succession of remote crashings began to be heard, the sound made by some heavy body forcing a way through the underbrush. Soon a man broke into the clearing and reeled to a seat on the log, shuddering uncontrollably in all his limbs.
He was a young man and had been personable. Just now his face was crimson with congested blood and streaked with sweat and grime; his lips were cracked and swollen, his eyes haggard, his hands bleeding. Woods equipment he had none beyond a
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