A man on horseback making his way through a wood. Not on road, or
trodden path, or trace of any kind. For it is a tract of virgin forest,
in which settler's axe has never sounded, rarely traversed by ridden
horse; still more rarely by pedestrian.
He, now passing through it, rides as fast as the thick standing trunks,
and tangle of undergrowth will allow. The darkness also obstructs him;
for it is night. Withal he advances rapidly, though cautiously; at
intervals glancing back, at longer ones, delaying to listen, with chin
upon his shoulder.
His behaviour shows fear; so, too, his face. Here and there the
moonbeams shining through breaks in the foliage, reveal upon his
features bewilderment, as well as terror. By their light he is guiding
his course, though he does not seem sure of it. The only thing
appearing certain is, that he fears something behind, and is fleeing
from it.
Once he pauses, longer than usual; and, holding his horse in check, sits
listening attentively. While thus halted, he hears a noise, which he
knows to be the ripple of a river. It seems oddly to affect him,
calling forth an exclamation, which shows he is dissatisfied with the
sound.
"Am I never to get away from it? I've been over an hour straying about
here, and there's the thing still--not a quarter of a mile off, and
timber thick as ever. I thought that last shoot would have taken me out
of it. I must have turned somewhere. No help for it, but try again."
Making a half-face round, he heads his horse in a direction opposite to
that from which comes the sound of the water. He has done so
repeatedly, as oft straying back towards the stream. It is evident he
has no wish to go any nearer; but a strong desire to get away from it.
This time he is successful. The new direction followed a half-mile
further shows him clear sky ahead, and in a few minutes more he is at
the forest's outmost edge. Before him stretches an expanse of plain
altogether treeless, but clothed with tall grass, whose culms stirred by
the night breeze, and silvered by the moonbeams, sway to and fro, like
the soft tremulous wavelets of a tropic sea; myriads of fire-flies
prinkling among the spikes, and emitting a gleam, as phosphorescent
_medusae_, make the resemblance complete.
The retreating horseman has no such comparison in his thoughts, nor any
time to contemplate Nature. The troubled expression in his eyes, tells
he is in no mood for it. His glance is not given to the grass, nor the
brilliant "lightning bugs," but to a dark belt discernible beyond,
apparently a tract of timber, similar to that he has just traversed.
More carefully scrutinised, it is seen to be rocks, not trees; in short
a continuous line of cliff, forming the boundary of the bottom-land.
He viewing it, well knows what it is, and intends proceeding on to it.
He only stays to take bearings for a particular place, at which he
evidently aims. His muttered words specify the point.
"The gulch must be to the right. I've gone up-river all the while.
Confound the crooked luck! It may throw me behind them going back; and
how am I to find my way over the big plain! If I get strayed there--Ha!
I see the pass now; yon sharp shoulder of rock--its there."
Once more setting his horse in motion, he makes for the point thus
identified. Not now in zig-zags, or slowly--as when working his way
through the timber--but in a straight tail-on-end gallop, fast as the
animal can go.
And now under the bright moonbeams it may be time to take a closer
survey of the hastening horseman. In garb he is Indian, from the
mocassins on his feet to the fillet of stained feathers surmounting his
head. But the colour of his skin contradicts the idea of his being an
aboriginal. His face shows white, but with some smut upon it, like that
of a chimney-sweep negligently cleansed. And his features are
Caucasian, not ill-favoured, except in their sinister expression; for
they are the features of Richard Darke.
Knowing it is he, it will be equally understood that the San Saba is the
stream whose sough is so dissonant in his ears, as also, why he is so
anxious to put a wide space between himself and its waters. On its bank
he has heard a name, and caught sight of him bearing it--the man of all
others he has most fear. The backwoodsman who tracked him in the
forests of Mississippi, now trailing him upon the prairies of Texas,
Simeon Woodley ever pursuing him! If in terror he has been retreating
through the trees, not less does he glide over the open ground. Though
going in a gallop, every now and then, as before, he keeps slewing round
in the saddle and gazing back with apprehensiveness, in fear he may see
forms issuing from the timber's edge, and coming on after.
None appear, however; and, at length, arriving by the bluffs base, he
draws up under its shadow, darker now, for clouds are beginning to
dapple the sky, making the moon's light intermittent. Again, he appears
uncertain about the direction he should take; and seated in his saddle,
looks inquiringly along the facade of the cliff, scrutinising its
outline.
Not long before his scrutiny is rewarded. A dark disc of triangular
shape, the apex inverted, proclaims a break in the escarpment. It is
the embouchure of a ravine, in short the pass he has been searching for,
the same already known to the reader. Straight towards it he rides,
with the confidence of one who has climbed it before. In like manner he
enters between its grim jaws, and spurs his horse up the slope under the
shadow of rocks overhanging right and left. He is some twenty minutes
in reaching its summit, on the edge of the upland plain. There he
emerges into moonlight; for Luna has again looked out.
Seated in his saddle he takes a survey of the bottom-land below. Afar
off, he can distinguish the dark belt of timber, fringing the river on
both sides, with here and there a reach of water between, glistening in
the moon's soft light like molten silver. His eyes rest not on this,
but stray over the open meadow, land in quest of something there.
There is nothing to fix his glance, and he now feels safe, for the first
time since starting on that prolonged retreat.