"It's stuck him up high," muttered the outer guard. "The boy is quite handsome all of a sudden!"
In fact, Leon was transformed, for, being of an eagle race, the more doleful he was in captivity, the more haughty and noble he was unfettered.
Long hours of meditation over the wilderness had "soaked" knowledge into him of wood and desert craft almost unawares.
He rode at once into the high grass and canebrake in the wet pits at the bottom of the canyon, for it was so high that he was hidden on the horse's back.
He mocked at the night, confident that he could guide himself by the stars. He ate in the saddle, and though he did not ride fast, kept on ceaselessly till he had gone by the Medicine Rock, where the Half-breeds were showing a fire in their ceremonies, pious perhaps, but assuredly imprudent.
Here he halted. From all Dearborn and Joe had imparted to him, he knew that friends were approaching and from the west. But should he proceed thitherward on the chance of crossing the trail of their outliers, or climb the other side of the giant defile and join Corky Joe, with whom he could be comparatively at ease, and if anything befell Kidd, as free as now?
His brooding was almost tragically put an end to by a gunshot above him, and whilst he instinctively looked up, his poor horse leaped and fell sidewise to the ground. In the flash he had recognised the face of the Frenchman. He threw himself off the dying horse, and none too soon, for a second shot, from a large pistol this time, carried away his hat, and with a fragment of the bullet laid the flesh open on his cheekbone. He stumbled at the shock, and rolled on the grass beside the stiffening horse.
"Aha!" cried Paul, who could be heard descending in the brushwood, "So I have served out my spy this time. Our dear captain, he does so hate to lose a man, that he sends after him. Who is it, anyhow, that I've peppered?"
Leon remained prone, but slewed his gun round ready. As he lay, the dead steed formed a rampart: he was well posted.
"He's my meat," muttered the Frenchman, holding on by a bush and peering down through the gloom.