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Hugging the base of the wall, he slipped on, passing the point where he had espied the sheep, and gliding on until he was stopped by a bend in the dense line of s It sheered to the west there and ran close to the high wall Jean kept on until he was stooping under a curling border ofthicket, with branches sliainst the wall Suddenly he encountered an abrupt corner of rock He rounded it, to discover that it ran at right angles with the one he had just passed Peering up through the s, he ascertained that there was a narrow crack in the main wall of the canyon It had been concealed bydown and leaning spruces above A wild, hidden retreat! Along the base of the wall there were tracks of small animals The place was odorous, like all dense thickets, but it was not dry Water ran through there somewhere Jean drew easier breath All sounds except the rustling of birds or mice in the s had ceased The brake was pervaded by a dreamy emptiness Jean decided to steal on a little farther, then wait till he felt he loo the s, he looked out into a narroinding canyon, with an open, grassy, -streaked lane in the center and on each side a thin strip of woodland
His surprise was short lived A crashing of horses back of hi the base of the wall, back of the trees Like the strip of woodland in the main canyon, this one was scant and had but little underbrush There were young spruces groith thick branches clear to the grass, and under these he could have concealed his in the vicinity, he would not think of hiding except as a last resource These horsemen, whoever they were, were as likely to be sheep herders as not Jean slackened his pace to look back He could not see any h not so close now Ahead of hie opened out like the neck of a bottle He would run on to the head of it and find a place to climb to the top
Hurried and anxious as Jean was, he yet received an ie It was a hidden, pine-fringed crack in the rock-ribbed and canyon-cut tableland Above hi streareened shelves From wall to as scarcely a distance of a hundred feet Ju to the wall He had to walk at the edge of the tieder aspect Through the trees ahead he sahere the wall circled toan oval depression, the nature of which he could not ascertain But it appeared to be a s walls Anxiety aught not be able to find a place to scale those rough cliffs Breathing hard, Jean halted again The situation was growing critical again His physical condition orse Loss of sleep and rest, lack of food, the long pursuit of Queen, the wound in his arm, and the desperate run for his life--these had weakened him to the extent that if he undertook any strenuous effort he would fail His cunning weighed all chances