Through the green close arbours above came an
occasional rift of sunshine, but the aisles were full of cold green
light. The boys shivered in their coyote skin coats and drew close
together; they dared not run about to keep warm; they must husband their
strength, and hunger was biting. There was no wind in the tree-tops, no
murmur of creek, only the low hum of the forest, that in their strained
ear-sense grew to a roar. Finally they fell asleep, and it was dark when
Roldan awoke. He shook Adan.
"Come," he said; and his partner, grumbling but acquiescent, got to his
feet and tramped heavily over the soft ground.
They had fled beyond paths, and Roldan could only trust to his locality
sense, which he knew to be good. But more than once they were brought to
halt before a wall of brush, which no man could have penetrated without
an axe. Then they would feel their way along its irregular bristling
side for a mile or more before it thinned sufficiently for egress.
Frequently they heard the deadly rattle, and more than once the near cry
of a panther, but there was nothing to do but push on. Precautions would
have availed them nothing, and there was no refuge nearer than the
pueblo.
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