would need
it. It asked them to pursue, because the one who fled wished to be
followed, and so wishing, he did not hide his trail from them. He would
be bitterly disappointed if they did not come. It told them, too, that
if they did come, no matter how great their speed, the hunters could
never catch the hunted.

He stopped two minutes perhaps, long enough for the fleetest of the
warriors to come within sight. Just as their brown bodies appeared among
the trees he uttered his piercing cry a third time and took to flight
again at a speed greater than any of theirs. Two shots were fired, but
the bullets cut only the uncomplaining leaves, falling far short. He
gained a full hundred yards, and then he turned abruptly toward the
north. His sixth sense, in which this time the supreme development of
hearing was predominant, warned him that other warriors were coming up
from the south. In truth they were approaching so fast that they uttered
a cry of triumph in reply to his own cry, but, increasing his speed, he
merely laughed to himself once more, knowing that he had evaded the
trap. His elation grew. His plan was succeeding better than he had
hoped. One after another he was drawing the Indian bands upon his trail,
and he hoped to have them all. He hoped that Red Eagle would lead the
pursuit and he hoped that Blackstaffe and Wyatt would be there.

His ear had given warning before, and now it was his eye that told him
of the menace. He caught a glimpse of a flitting figure in the north,
and then of two more. And so a third band was bearing down upon him, but
from a point of the compass opposite the second. Any one of ordinary
powers might well have been trapped now, but he yet had strength in
reserve, and now he put forth an amazing burst of speed that carried him
well ahead of all three bands.

Then he entered another low region covered with bushes and reeds, and,
lest they lose his trail, he took occasion, as he fled, to trample down
a clump of reeds here and a bush there. On the far side of this sunken
land he came to a creek, in which the water rose to his knees, but he
forded it without hesitation, and even took the time to make a plain
trail after he had crossed.

He knew that the warriors would pursue, in spite of every obstacle, and
he knew, too, that they would divine who it was whom they followed.
Using a new burst of speed, he widened the gap as he surmised to a full
quarter of a mile. And then he let his gait s