e chapparal
explained it. Though I no longer saw him, he was yet within hearing.
His footfall on the firm ground, the occasional snapping of a dead
stick, the whisk of the recoiling branches, all reached my ears as I was
remounting.

These sounds guided me, and without staying to follow his tracks, I
dashed forward to the edge of the chapparal--at the point nearest to
where I heard him moving.

I did not pause to look for an opening, but, heading in the direction
whence came the sounds, I spurred forward into the thicket.

Breasting the bushes that reached around, his neck, or bounding over
them, my brave horse pressed on; but he had not gone three lengths of
himself before I recognised the imprudence of the course I was pursuing:
I now saw I should have _followed the tracks_.

I no longer heard the movements of the steed--neither foot-stroke, nor
snapping sticks, nor breaking branches. The noise made by my own horse,
amid the crackling acacias, drowned every other sound; and so long as I
kept in motion, I moved with uncertainty. It was only when I made stop
that I could again hear the chase struggling through the thicket; but
now the sounds were faint and far distant--growing still fainter as I
listened.

Once more I urged forward my horse, heading him almost at random; but I
had not advanced a hundred paces, before the misery of uncertainty again
impelled me to halt.

This time I listened and heard nothing--not even the recoil of a bough.
The steed had either stopped, and was standing silent, or, what was more
probable, had gained so so far in advance of me that his hoof-stroke was
out of hearing.

Half-frantic, angered at myself, too much excited for cool reflection, I
lanced the sides of my horse, and galloped madly through the thicket.

I rode several hundred yards before drawing bridle, in a sort of
desperate hope I might once more bring myself within earshot of the
chase.

Again I halted to listen. My recklessness proved of no avail. Not a
sound reached my ear: even had there been sounds, I should scarcely have
heard them above that that was issuing from the nostrils of my panting
horse; but sound there was none. Silent was the chapparal around me--
silent as death; not even a bird moved among its branches.

I felt something like self-execration: my imprudence I denounced over
and over. But for my rash haste, I might yet have been upon the trail--
perhaps within sight of the object of pursuit.