"Come," he said; and his partner, grumbling but acquiescent, got to his feet and tramped heavily over the soft ground.
They had fled beyond paths, and Roldan could only trust to his locality sense, which he knew to be good. But more than once they were brought to halt before a wall of brush, which no man could have penetrated without an axe. Then they would feel their way along its irregular bristling side for a mile or more before it thinned sufficiently for egress. Frequently they heard the deadly rattle, and more than once the near cry of a panther, but there was nothing to do but push on. Precautions would have availed them nothing, and there was no refuge nearer than the pueblo. Sometimes they walked down aisles unchoked by brush but full of moving shadows, above which sounded the lonely continuous hooting of the owl. Now and again bats whirred past, and once a startled wildcat scurried across the path and darted up a tree, crying with terror.
"If we only don't meet a bear," thought Roldan, who dared not speak lest his voice should shake courage and terrors apart.
It was midnight when Adan announced with what emphasis was left in him,—
"We are lost."
Roldan answered through his teeth: "Yes, but I think I hear the creek. When we find that, all we have to do is to follow it south."
"My heart is in the South," muttered Adan. "We might follow that."
"I am ashamed of you," said Roldan, with a lofty scorn which was good for five words and no more.
It was a half hour later that they stood upon the high bank of the creek and looked gratefully up at the broad strip of night light. After the dense shadows of the forest the cold light of stars seemed more radiant than noon-day.
"We cannot follow along the bank for more than a little way at a time, on account of the ferns and brush," said Roldan. "We should walk three times the distance, and perhaps get lost again. I am going to wade. Will you?"