And now he fled between the trees as if his moccasins were wings. His running power was marvellous. The prairies and the wolves between them, had given him that. If the antelopes went like the wind, Dusty Star went like the antelopes. Even his pursuers, as relentless and almost as tireless as the wolves themselves, and who passed their lives among winged and footed swiftnesses, were astonished at such running, the like of which they had never seen. To their amazed eyes he seemed less to be running than floating out of their sight. There was "medicine" in his feet!
What his own running looked like, Dusty Star did not know. But he knew what the forest looked like. It ceased to stand still. The trees raced to meet him, in a hurry to be past! And as they came, he seemed to cast them behind him, tree by breathless tree; hemlock and fir, sycamore and maple—it was as if he flung the whole rushing forest in the teeth of the pursuit!
After the first terrified glances to measure the distance, he did not dare to look behind. All his sight was needed for the ground immediately ahead. To fall—even to stumble—might cost him his life. Yet he knew that, so far, he was keeping ahead. The knowledge gave him courage. If only his strength would hold out! The pace was killing. He knew he could not keep it up for very much longer. Even now he fancied he was running less quickly. He was beginning to realize that he got his breath with more and more effort. And to lose his breath was the beginning of the end. For a considerable distance, his greater speed would enable him to out-distance all pursuit; but in a long race, it is endurance which counts; and while his pursuers were full-grown men, he was, after all, only yet a boy. Yet with breath going, and courage failing, Dusty Star fled on.
If there is a Good Spirit which carries its mysterious warning to the children of the wilderness when danger threatens, it would seem sometimes as if there were an evil one which lures them to their doom. Else why should Dusty Star swerve suddenly to the right along a new trail, and in doing so turn to look behind? The next moment, he had caught his foot against a projecting root, and was down.
He was on his feet in an instant; but the fall had lessened his breathing power, and when he started to run again, it was plain that he was losing ground.
With savage whoops of triumph, his pursuers came bounding on.
With a feeling of wild despair. Dusty Star gathered himself together for a final effort. As he made it, he cried aloud. It was a strange sort of bark, half-human, half-wolf. If any wolf-ear happened to catch it, the hearer would recognize it as a call for help. But although Dusty Star threw all his voice into that last despairing cry, it seemed to be muffled by the forest till it died in the throat of its glooms.
The Indians were very close upon him now. Only the humming of the blood in his ears deadened the soft padding sound of their moccasins as they ran.
But now, at the very last, there swims into Dusty Star's sight a confused vision. It comes at a tremendous pace. Its running is that of a wolf at full speed, the body low along the ground. The strong, deeply-padded feet spurn the ground from under them with bounds that are like blows. The eyes burn like green fires. There is a wild glare in them, of rage goaded to madness. All the fury of the forest is in that grey running with the eyes that burn.
Dusty Star, dazed with exhaustion did not immediately realize what the creature was, until it leaped upon him, and he fell.