George realized that he had blundered, both in calling at the homestead and in mentioning his name, which had figured in the newspaper account of the attack on Grant.  The farmer, it seemed, had a good idea of the situation, and if not in league with the rustlers, was afraid of them.  George was wasting time and giving information that might put his pursuers on his trail.  In the meanwhile he noticed a face at the window and a voice called to the man, who stepped back into the house and appeared again with a big slab of cold pie.

“Take this and light out,” he said.

Having eaten nothing since his supper, George was glad of the food; but he walked on smartly for an hour before he sat down in a clump of brush and made a meal.  Then he lighted his pipe and spent a couple of hours in much needed rest.  Haste was highly desirable; he had no doubt that he was being followed, but he could go no farther for a while.

It was very hot when he got up; he was sore all over, and his foot was paining, but he set off at a run and kept it up until he had crossed a rise two miles away.  The country was getting more broken, which was in his favor, because the clumps of bush and the small elevations would tend to hide him.  He went on until dusk, without finding any water; and then lay down among some tall grass in the open.  There was a little bluff not far off, but if the rustlers came that way, he thought they would search it.  It grew cold as darkness crept down; indeed he imagined that the temperature had fallen to near freezing-point, as it sometimes does on the plains after a scorching day.

Part of the night he lay awake, shivering; but during the rest he slept; and he rose at dawn, very cold and wet with dew.  His foot was very sore, and he had a sharp pain in his side.  For the first hour, walking cost him an effort; but as he grew warmer it became less difficult, and his foot felt easier.  Then, as he crossed a slight elevation, he saw a faint gray smear on the far horizon and it sent a thrill through him.  Canadian locomotives burning native coal pour out clouds of thick black smoke which can be seen a long way in the clear air of the prairie.  George was thirty or forty feet, he thought, above the general level of the plain, the light was strong, and he imagined that it would take him most of the day to reach the spot over which the smoke had floated.  He was, however, heading for the track, and he gathered his courage.

He saw no more smoke for a long time—­the increasing brightness seemed to diminish the clarity of the air.  Before noon the pain in his side had become almost insupportable, and his head was swimming; he felt worn out, scarcely able to keep on his feet, but again a gray streak on the horizon put heart into him.  It did not appear to move for a while, and he thought it must have been made by a freight-engine working about a station.  Then, as he came down the gradual slope of a wide depression, a long bluff on its opposite verge cut the skyline, a hazy smear of neutral color.  He determined to reach the wood and lie down for a time in its shadow.