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 carefully, running at top speed for a mile at least, to lead the pursuit away from the Thorwald and then at the banks of a small stream paused a moment and listened. He had eluded them. Then without hesitation, though puffing fearfully from his exertions, he stepped down into the cold waters of the stream and waded up it, avoiding the ledges and making sure that he left no mark behind him. As he climbed higher up the mountain, he could see in the distance the glow of the lights of the machines and when he reached a mossy bank which would not betray him, he clambered out of the water and turned, doubling like a fox, upon his trail, turning back in the general direction from which he had come.

Doris worried him. He could imagine her crouching there two hundred feet in the air just above the two machines, half dead with fear of capture and terror for him. Had she seen what had happened and understood it? Would she have the kind of silent endurance to crouch there and wait? He hurried on into the maze of rocks and deep woods, finding at last a deer trail that he knew. There were but two means of ingress to the cave of the Thorwald, one by the secret path in the bushes up the rocks which Doris had taken, the other from the upper side which he was now rapidly approaching.

He ran along the deer trail, reloading his automatic as he went, his eyes peering ahead for familiar landmarks, cutting in at last to the left at a great rock around which the deer trail led. He now proceeded with great caution. Far below him he could see the reflections of the lights of the two cars and heard the voices of men. He went down a way toward the wall of rocks, clambering over huge bowlders, haul-