He felt his horse shake and knew that he had been hit.  Yet the brave animal ran on as well as ever, despite the triumphant shout behind, which showed that he must be leaving a trail of blood.  But the woods, thick and inviting, were near, and he believed that he would reach them.  The horse shook again, much more violently than before, and then fell to his knees.  Harry leaped off, still clutching the shotgun, just as the brave animal fell over on his side and began to breathe out his life.

He heard again that shout of triumph, but he was one who never gave up.  He had alighted easily on his feet.  The trees were not more than fifteen yards away and he disappeared among them as bullets clipped bark and twigs about him.

He breathed a deep sigh of thankfulness when he entered the forest.  It was so dense, and there was so much undergrowth that the horsemen could not follow him there.  If they came on foot, and spread out, as they must, to hunt him, he had the double-barreled shotgun and it was a deadly weapon.  The fox had suddenly become the panther, alert, powerful, armed with claws that killed.

Harry went deep into the thickets before he sat down.  He had no doubt that they would follow him, but at present he was out of their sight and hearing.  He felt a mixture of elation and sadness, elation over his temporary escape, and sadness over the loss of his gallant horse.  But one could not dwell long on regrets at such a time, and, advancing a little farther, he sat down among the densest bushes that he could find with the shotgun across his knees.

Now Harry saw that the horse had really done all that it was possible for him to do.  He had brought him to the wood, and within he would have been a drawback.  A man on foot could conceal himself far more easily.  Everything favored him.  There were bushes and vines everywhere and he could be hidden like a deer in its covert.

He looked up at the sun shining through the tops of the trees and saw that he had kept to his true course.  His flight had taken him directly toward Lee at a much faster pace than he would have come otherwise.  The enemy had driven him on his errand at double speed.  He felt that he could spare a little time now, while he waited to see what the pursuit would do.

His feeling of exultation was now unalloyed.  Deep in the forest with his foes looking for him in vain, the spirit of Henry Ware was once more strong within him.  He was the reincarnation of the great hunter.  He lay so still, clasping the shotgun, that the little creatures of the woods were deceived.  A squirrel ran up the trunk of an oak six feet away, and stood fearlessly in a fork with his bushy tail curved over his back.  A small gray bird perched on a bough just over Harry’s head and poured out a volume of song.  Farther away sounded the tap tap of a woodpecker on the bark of a dead tree.