Minus cap and bags, Tom "got"--stumbling into the brook ditch on his
face, then hurrying up the stream, and running blindly through the woods
to the road, and so to the mountain. He sat down at last on the crest, a
stitch wracking his side.
What chance did he have, with the Ellis boys after him with shotguns?
Maybe he could lie low for a while; keep on the mountain, until the
shotguns' energetic memories had turned to other things. He shuffled
along the outcrop, then turned in to avoid the cactus that punctuated
the hillock before Locust Hedge.