Page:Cornelia Meigs-The Pirate of Jasper Peak.djvu/113

 down the rock in a wild scramble, landed on all-fours among the brambles, picked himself up and started down the opposite side of the hill at a run.

He was quite unconscious of the fact that he had dropped Oscar’s rifle and had left it behind  him. He never had any idea of where he went or in what direction. He ran until he could drag his leaden feet no longer, then he lay panting  upon the ground until he could get up and run  again. Finally he became so exhausted that he could only walk and had to stop to rest every  few minutes, but still he pressed obstinately on,  determined to get somewhere, anywhere.

Once he found himself, not knowing how he got there, floundering at the edge of a wide marsh  and noticed footmarks in the soft ground beside  him as though some great creature of the woods  had passed there not very long before. The prints were very large and clear in the wet earth,  but he scarcely noticed them so far gone was he  in weariness and despair. Slowly he dragged himself on, past a dense poplar thicket, over a  dried-up watercourse, up a hill, through the close