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 "He may have struck it," thought Scarlett, as he ran through the open. The thief could have cut across to any point of the compass; all trails were now equal.

Nevertheless he pounded across, doggedly; pierced again into the smothering jungle; wrestled through a wall of thorn bushes; tripped, fell, rose again, and stumbled forth into another clearing, with face and hands bloody. The futility of the chase flashed upon him so clear and sudden that he stopped, swore, mechanically listened. The Chinaman might be hidden, chuckling, in some thicket far behind; or far to their left, be speeding down a free jungle path. The parched crackle of palm fronds continued, sharp as the rattle of carriage wheels. His thorn cuts smarted with salt sweat. Once—if it was not the dizzy thumping in his ears—a strange, gabbling cry sounded, away to the right. He tramped