Would his people ever know where he had
fallen? How wretched, how miserable his state! It was cowardly, it was
monstrous for him to cling longer to this doomed life. Then the hate in
his heart, the hellish hate of these men on his trail--that was like a
scourge. He felt no longer human. He had degenerated into an animal that
could think. His heart pounded, his pulse beat, his breast heaved;
and this internal strife seemed to thunder into his ears. He was now
enacting the tragedy of all crippled, starved, hunted wolves at bay in
their dens. Only his tragedy was infinitely more terrible because he
had mind enough to see his plight, his resemblance to a lonely wolf,
bloody-fanged, dripping, snarling, fire-eyed in a last instinctive
defiance.

Mounted upon the horror of Duane's thought was a watching, listening
intensity so supreme that it registered impressions which were creations
of his imagination. He heard stealthy steps that were not there; he saw
shadowy moving figures that were only leaves. A hundred times when he
was about to pull trigger he discovered his error. Yet voices came from
a distance, and steps and crackings in the willows, and other sounds
real enough. But Duane could not distinguish the real from the false.
There were times when the wind which had arisen sent a hot, pattering
breath down the willow aisles, and Duane heard it as an approaching
army.

This straining of Duane's faculties brought on a reaction which in
itself was a respite. He saw the sun darkened by thick slow spreading
clouds. A storm appeared to be coming. How slowly it moved! The air
was like steam. If there broke one of those dark, violent storms common
though rare to the country, Duane believed he might slip away in the
fury of wind and rain. Hope, that seemed unquenchable in him, resurged
again. He hailed it with a bitterness that was sickening.

Then at a rustling step he froze into the old strained attention. He
heard a slow patter of soft feet. A tawny shape crossed a little opening
in the thicket. It was that of a dog. The moment while that beast came
into full view was an age. The dog was not a bloodhound, and if he had
a trail or a scent he seemed to be at fault on it. Duane waited for the
inevitable discovery. Any kind of a hunting-dog could have found him
in that thicket. Voices from outside could be heard urging on the dog.
Rover they called him. Duane sat up at the moment the dog entered the
little shaded covert. Duane