il, 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.

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,