Page:Gray Eagle (1927).pdf/52

 shoulder. The mountains were his home, and now he turned back to them. Fleeing from this new danger, he struck northwestward once more.

All that afternoon he traveled. At first his gait was a Swinging trot faster than the trot of a horse. But at every step pain racked his wounded shoulder, and soon the trot became a walk. Yet, even walking, he traveled fast. Almayne, studying the tracks—the snowfall had lasted less than half an hour—saw that the elk had changed his gait and felt more confident than ever that the chase would not be a long one. He found no more blood on the trail, and abandoned hope of overtaking his quarry before nightfall. But Awi Agwa, he thought, would hardly travel throughout the night. Not knowing that he was pursued, sooner or later the elk would lie down to rest, and when he rose to continue his journey the wounded shoulder would have stiffened.

Well after nightfall he lay down. Before dawn he rose, staggered, stood swaying precariously. He had forgotten his wound, for the pain had all but vanished. But the moment he stood on his legs, it stabbed him again, and when he tried to walk he found that he could barely move his right foreleg.

Sudden panic seized him. Without stopping to feed, he set off northwestward. For a while he hobbled and stumbled as though his foreleg were broken, but gradually, although the stabs of pain