Resting in the bushes above the trail, late in the afternoon, he had
seen Blake and his men. They had stopped to rest, and he could hear
their conversation plainly. With all the wiliness of a hunted thing,
he had slipped off into the forest, terrified to find that his
pursuers were so close upon him.
He had learned that they were making for S---- and it was easy to see
that their progress was slow and grueling. His feet were light, his
legs strong; peril gave wings to his courage. Something told him that
he must beat them by many miles into the town of S----. Once, when he
was much younger, he had gone to S---- with his grandfather to see the
soldiers encamped there. He remembered the railroad. It was imperative
that he should reach the railway as far in advance of his pursuers as
legs and a stout heart could carry him.
A wide _detour_ through the sombre forest brought him to the road
once more, fully a mile below his pursuers. He forgot his hunger and
his fatigue. For miles he ran with the fleetness of a scared thing,
guided by the crude sign-boards which pointed the way and told the
distance to S----.
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