out the reins and let the
horse go, urging with cluck and spur, never slacking for rock or
hill or swale. It was a wilder ride than any I have known since or
shall again, I can promise you, for, God knows, I have been hurt
too often. Fast riding over a new trail is leaping in the dark and
worse than treason to one's self. Add to it a saddle wet with your
own blood, then you have something to give you a turn of the
stomach thinking of it.

When I was near tumbling with a kind of rib-ache and could hear no
pursuer, I pulled up. There was silence about me, save the sound
of a light breeze in the tree-tops. I rolled off my horse, and
hooked my elbow in the reins, and lay on my belly, grunting with
pain. I felt better, having got my breath, and a rod of beech to
bite upon--a good thing if one has been badly stung and has a
journey to make. In five minutes I was up and off at a slow jog,
for I knew I was near safety.

I thought much of poor D'ri and how he might be faring. The last I
had seen of him, he was making good use of pistol and legs, running
from tree to tree. He was a dead shot, little given to wasting
lead. The drums were what worried me, for they indicated a big
camp, and unless he got to the stirrups in short order, he must
have been taken by overwhelming odds. It was near sundown when I
came to a brook and falls I could not remember passing. I looked
about me. Somewhere I had gone off the old trail--everything was
new to me. It widened, as I rode on, up a steep hill. Where the
tree-tops opened, the hill was covered with mossy turf, and there
were fragrant ferns on each side of me. The ground was clear of
brush and dead timber. Suddenly I heard a voice singing--a sweet
girl voice that thrilled me, I do not know why, save that I always
longed for the touch of a woman if badly hurt. But then I have
felt that way having the pain of neither lead nor steel. The voice
rang in the silent woods, but I could see no one nor any sign of
human habitation. Shortly I came out upon a smooth roadway
carpeted with sawdust. It led through a grove, and following it, I
came suddenly upon a big green mansion among the trees, with Doric
pillars and a great portico where hammocks hung with soft cushions
in them, and easy-chairs of old mahogany stood empty. I have said
as little as possible of my aching wound: I have always thought it
bad enough for one to suffer his own pain. But I must say I was
never so tri