As he was, without coat or hat, he leaped from the crag, as if he were trying to jump squarely into the middle of the village of Egypt.  He had taken no thought of the steepness of the slope or the dangers of descent.  He slipped and rolled for many rods and a rain of rocks and earth followed him and beat upon him when he caught a tree and clung to it.  He went on more cautiously after that; blood trickled from the wounds on his face where the sharp edges of rocks had cut.  He thrust himself through the scrub growth, opening a way with the motions of a swimmer, his hands scarred by the tangled branches.  There were other steep places that were broken by terraces.  When he was down from the rocky heights on which the vapor did not extend and had entered the confusing mists, he was obliged to go more slowly still, for he narrowly missed some nasty falls.

Fierce impatience roweled him.  He would not allow himself to weaken his determination by thinking on what he would do after he arrived at the Harnden home.  He had set that as his goal.  Above other considerations he placed his frenzied resolution to protect Vona.  He realized that he must protect her even from himself—­from the shock she would suffer by his unprefaced appearance, this lover who would come like one risen from the dead!  The scoundrels who came seeking Britt in her home would not be as terrifying as the visitor who would seem to be a specter—­the shade of the convict whom a mountain had crushed, so said the official reports of the tragic affair.

The fact that he was rushing to meet in combat three men, armed and desperate, worried him less than his anguished concern in behalf of the girl who was unprepared for his advent by hint or warning.

At last he came to the pasture slopes where he was more sure of his footing.  He ran.  When he heard the rumble of wheels he stopped in order to listen, trying to distinguish the location of the sound in the fog, which made direction uncertain.  He knew it must be late.  Few vehicles were moved in Egypt after dark.  He suspected that what he heard was the van.

However, he was puzzled by what he was hearing.  Either there were many vehicles, or else the echoes were playing pranks in the mists which enwrapped all objects.  Under the pall of fog all sounds were exaggerated.  To right and left, near at hand and far away he heard the rumble of wheels, the creak of whiffletrees, and the plodding feet of animals.

He heard, too, an occasional, dust-choked bleat or a plaintive lowing.

But a sound that was repeated regularly he could not understand, nor could he determine the direction from which it came.  It was sound diffused like the fog itself.  It was mellowed by distance.  He recognized the notes as the winding of some sort of a horn or trump.

Vaniman’s ears were telling him nothing definite.  He hurried on down the hill so that he might make his eyes serve him at closer range.  In order to see what was going on in the highway he was obliged to go close to the wall which bordered it; though the fog hindered, it helped, for in the obscurity he was well hidden among the bushes.