eared suddenly on the
hither rim of Escondido's sunken valley.

Jeff knew the land as you know your hallway. That line of dust marked
the trail from Escondido Valley to the farther gate of Double Mountain.
Even if he should be lucky enough to get a change of mounts at the
spring in Double Mountain Basin he would be intercepted. Escape by
flight was impossible. To fight his way out was impossible. He had no
gun; and, even if he had a gun, he could not see his way to fight, under
the circumstances. The men who hunted him down were only doing the right
thing as they saw it. Had Jeff been guilty, it would have been a
different affair. Being innocent, he could make no fight for it. He was
cornered.

"Said the little Eohippus:
'I'm going to be a horse!'"

So chanted Jeff, perceiving the hopelessness of his plight.

The best gift to man--or, if not the best, then at least the rarest--is
the power to meet the emergency: to do your best and a little better
than your best when nothing less will serve: to be a pinch hitter. It is
to be thought that certain stages of affection, and more particularly
the presence of its object, affect unfavorably the workings of pure
intellect. Certain it is that capable Bransford, who had cut so sorry a
figure in Eden garden, now, in these distressing but Eveless
circumstances, rose to the occasion. Collected, resourceful, he grasped
every possible angle of the situation and, with the rope virtually about
his neck, cheerfully planned the impossible--the essence of his elastic
plan being to climb that very rope, hand over hand, to safety.

"Going round the mountain is no good on a give-out horse. They'll follow
my tracks," said Jeff to Jeff. Men who are much alone so shape their
thoughts by voicing them, just as you practice conversation rather to
make your own thought clear to yourself than to enlighten your
victim--beg pardon--your neighbor. Just a slip of the tongue. _Vecino_
is the Spanish for neighbor, you know. Not so much to enlighten your
neighbor as to find out for yourself precisely what it is you think.
"Hiding in the Basin is no good. Can't get out. Would I were a bird!
Only one way. Got to go straight up--disappear--vanish in the air. 'Up
a chimney, up----' Naw, that's backward! 'Up a chimney, down, or down a
chimney, down; but not up a chimney, up, nor down a chimney, up!' So
that's settled! Now let me see, says the little man. Mighty few
Arcadians know me well enough n