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 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 unerring shots, he crippled several others.
That stopped the baying. Piercing howls arose. The pack took

fright and fled, its course easily marked by the howls of the
crippled members. Duane reloaded his gun, and, making certain

all the hounds had gone, he descended to the ground and set off
at a rapid pace to the northward.

The mist had dissolved under a rising sun when Duane made his
first halt some miles north of the scene where he had waited

for the hounds. A barrier to further progress, in shape of a
precipitous rocky bluff, rose sheer from the willow brake. He

skirted the base of the cliff, where walking was comparatively
easy, around in the direction of the river. He reached the end

finally to see there was absolutely no chance to escape from
the brake at that corner. It took extreme labor, attended by

some hazard and considerable pain to his arm, to get down where
he could fill his sombrero with water. After quenching his

thirst he had a look at his wound. It was caked over with blood
and dirt. When washed off the arm was seen to be inflamed and

swollen around the bullet-hole. He bathed it, experiencing a
soothing relief in the cool water. Then he bandaged it as best

he could and arranged a sling round his neck. This mitigated
the pain of the injured member and held it in a quiet and

restful position, where it had a chance to begin mending.
As Duane turned away from the river he felt refreshed. His

great strength and endurance had always made fatigue something
almost unknown to him. However, tramping on foot day and night

was as unusual to him as to any other riders of the Southwest,
and it had begun to tell on him. Retracing his steps, he

reached the point where he had abruptly come upon the bluff,
and here he determined to follow along its base in the other

direction until he found a way out or discovered the futility
of such effort.

Duane covered ground rapidly. From time to time he paused to
listen. But he was always listening, and his eyes were ever

roving. This alertness had become second nature with him, so
that except in extreme cases of caution he performed it while

he pondered his gloomy and fateful situation. Such habit of
alertness and thought made time fly swiftly.

By noon he had rounded the wide curve of the brake and was
facing south. The bluff had petered out from a high,

mountainous wall to a low abutment of rock, but it still held
to its steep, rough nature and afforded no crack or slope where

quick ascent could have been possible. He pushed on, growing
warier as he approached the danger-zone, finding that as he

neared the river on this side it was imperative to go deeper
into the willows. In the afternoon he reached a point where he

could see men pacing to and fro on the bluff. This assured him
that whatever place was guarded was one by which he might

escape. He headed toward these men and approached to within a
hundred paces of the bluff where they were. There were several

men and several boys, all armed and, after the manner of
Texans, taking their task leisurely. Farther down Duane made

out black dots on the horizon of the bluff-line, and these he
concluded were more guards stationed at another outlet.

Probably all the available men in the district were on duty.
Texans took a grim pleasure in such work. Duane remembered that

upon several occasions he had served such duty himself.
Duane peered through the branches and studied the lay of the

land. For several hundred yards the bluff could be climbed. He
took stock of those careless guards. They had rifles, and that

made vain any attempt to pass them in daylight. He believed an
attempt by night might be successful; and he was swiftly coming

to a determination to hide there till dark and then try it,
when the sudden yelping of a dog betrayed him to the guards on

the bluff.
The dog had likely been placed there to give an alarm, and he

was lustily true to his trust. Duane saw the men run together
and begin to talk excitedly and peer into the brake, which was

a signal for him to slip away under the willows. He made no
noise, and he assured himself he must be invisible.

Nevertheless, he heard shouts, then the cracking of rifles, and
bullets began to zip and swish through the leafy covert. The

day was hot and windless, and Duane concluded that whenever he
touched a willow stem, even ever so slightly, it vibrated to

the top and sent a quiver among the leaves. Through this the
guards had located his position. Once a bullet hissed by him;

another thudded into the ground before him. This shooting
loosed a rage in Duane. He had to fly from these men, and he

hated them and himself because of it. Always in the fury of
such moments he wanted to give back shot for shot. But he

slipped on through the willows, and at length the rifles ceased
to crack.

He sheered to the left again, in line with the rocky barrier,
and kept on, wondering what the next mile would bring.

It brought worse, for he was seen by sharp-eyed scouts, and a
hot fusillade drove him to run for his life, luckily to escape

with no more than a bullet-creased shoulder.
Later that day, still undaunted, he sheered again toward the

trap-wall, and found that the nearer he approached to the place
where he had come down into the brake the greater his danger.

To attempt to run the blockade of that trail by day would be
fatal. He waited for night, and after the brightness of the

fires had somewhat lessened he assayed to creep out of the
brake. He succeeded in reaching the foot of the bluff, here

only a bank, and had begun to crawl stealthily up under cover
of a shadow when a hound again betrayed his position.