Page:Vance--The trey o hearts.djvu/50

32 hunting-knife. All else had been consumed in the forest fire or stolen by his Indian guide.

Now the man was lost. After a night passed without a fire he had waked to discover the sun rising in the west and the rest of the universe sympathetically upside-down. Aimlessly, ever since, he had stumbled and blundered—possessed by a notion that he was dogged by furtive enemies—and within the last hour the puppet of blind, witless panic.

Even now, as he strove to calm himself and rest, the feeling that something was peering at him grew intolerably acute. He jumped up, flung himself frantically through the brush in pursuit of the something, and—found nothing. With a great effort he pulled himself together and turned back to the clearing.

There, upon the log on which he had rested, he found—but refused to believe he saw—a playing card—a Trey of Hearts.

With a gesture of horror Alan Law fled the place.

Then a grinning half-breed guide stole like a shadow to the log, picked up and pocketed the card, and set out in tireless, catfooted pursuit.

An hour later, topping a ridge, Alan caught the music of clashing waters. Tortured by thirst, he began at once to descend in reckless haste. What was at first a gentle slope grew swiftly more declivi-