ns after a scorching day.

Part of the night he lay awake, shivering; but during the rest he
slept; and he rose at dawn, very cold and wet with dew. His foot was
very sore, and he had a sharp pain in his side. For the first hour,
walking cost him an effort; but as he grew warmer it became less
difficult, and his foot felt easier. Then, as he crossed a slight
elevation, he saw a faint gray smear on the far horizon and it sent a
thrill through him. Canadian locomotives burning native coal pour out
clouds of thick black smoke which can be seen a long way in the clear
air of the prairie. George was thirty or forty feet, he thought, above
the general level of the plain, the light was strong, and he imagined
that it would take him most of the day to reach the spot over which the
smoke had floated. He was, however, heading for the track, and he
gathered his courage.

He saw no more smoke for a long time--the increasing brightness seemed
to diminish the clarity of the air. Before noon the pain in his side
had become almost insupportable, and his head was swimming; he felt
worn out, scarcely able to keep on his feet, but again a gray streak on
the horizon put heart into him. It did not appear to move for a while,
and he thought it must have been made by a freight-engine working about
a station. Then, as he came down the gradual slope of a wide
depression, a long bluff on its opposite verge cut the skyline, a hazy
smear of neutral color. He determined to reach the wood and lie down
for a time in its shadow.

It scarcely seemed to grow any nearer, and an hour had passed before it
assumed any regularity of outline. When it had grown into shape,
George stopped and looked about. It was fiercely hot, the grass was
dazzlingly bright, there was no house or sign of cultivation as far as
his sight ranged; but on glancing back he started as he saw three small
mounted figures on the plain. They had not been there when he last
turned around, and they were moving, spread out about a mile apart. It
was obvious that the rustlers were on his trail. For another moment he
looked at the bluff, breathing hard, with his lips tight set. If he
could reach the wood before he was overtaken, it would offer him cover
from a bullet, and if he could not evade his enemies, he might make a
stand with the ax among the thicker trees. It was an irrational idea,
as he half recognized; but he had grown savage with fatigue, and he had
already suf