It was a simple matter to double over and to reach the bonds that tied his ankles. The knot was soon untied. And Brinton lay unbound and half fainting.
For hours he lay thus. Then, at a change of sentries, he began to wriggle noiselessly away from the camp.
Giving the drowsy sentry a wide berth, he crept on hands and knees through the darkness until the camp lay a furlong behind him and the sides of the farther and higher ridge loomed directly above him.
An hour later, at first glimmer of dawn, Brinton gained the ridge’s summit and lay resting for a time on its crest. After which he rose and looked ahead. In front of him, far below, and a few miles beyond the ridge, something broad and silvery lay glittering in the dawn light.
With a hoarse cry, Brinton recognized it.
“The Rio Grande!” he croaked. “The Rio Grande! Yonder to the left is the ford we crossed! And—beyond, lies God’s country!”
At noon, Brinton reached the river’s bank. Hope had replaced strength and had made the last stage of the journey possible. Waist deep he waded into the stream, crouching down and rolling over in the tepid water; sucking in pints of it as he assuaged his thirst.
To his feet once more and floundering on, across the ford; then he fell on his face at full length, on the northern bank; his hands digging deeply into the soil.
“My country!” he sobbed, hysterically. “My own, own country!”
Then, as an echo, chilling his wild joy, he found himself murmuring incoherently: