A few moments should have brought him to the cleft, but he ran for five minutes as fast as he could, yet did not reach it. He knew he was going down hill and he was sure he was running in the direction in which the lowest branch of the tree pointed. He remembered noticing that branch in the daylight and now in his flight he had made assurance doubly sure by noticing where it pointed.
Yet he did not reach the cleft. He ran a little farther, then paused, bewildered, anxious. Here was a fine state of things! He was lost. His friends would shout, would undoubtedly ascend the hill in search of him. They would either be heard or would stumble onto that desperate pair of robbers. What was he to do now? Where was he? Wherever he looked there was only darkness. Standing still he could not even be sure about the slope. He ran a little to make sure of this. Yes, he was running down; he could tell by the way each foot struck the ground. He ran a little further, then paused irresolute.
Silence, darkness; darkness impenetrable. Westy tried to believe that he could see the outline of a mountain he had noticed in the daylight. He remembered where this was in relation to the cleft. It seemed like blackness hovering in blackness; there was no real outline, it was all elusive. He became greatly agitated. To be baffled like this in the very fullness of his achievement galled him to distraction.
He was seized with a rash impulse to scream and let happen what would. He was within hearing of four people, yet he could not shout. He wondered what would happen if he did shout, or if his comrades shouted. If one of them shouted just once, he might run with all his might and main to them and prevent a second shout. But even one shout would be perilous business. He was panic-stricken.
How easily Shining Sun would have sped to his destination through wilderness and darkness! With what unerring instinct that hero of the wilds would have extricated himself from this predicament. “Shining Sun with a coat full of money and things.” Westy laughed nervously. Shining Sun and money seemed not to go together at all. He was of the race that sold vast tracts of country for glass beads and trinkets.
It was only in a nervous way, caused by his perplexity and panic, that Westy thought then of the Indian boy who had haunted him as much as Mr. Wilde had. Such thoughts jump in and out of the troubled and preoccupied mind like spirits.
He was now on the verge of utter panic. He ran a few paces, paused, then ran a few paces in another direction. In this way he became the more confused. He had no more idea of his direction than he would have had at midnight on the trackless ocean. He had escaped from the outlaws. But the Rocky Mountains had caught him. The one thing to deliver him out of this penetrable blackness was his voice, and that would only betray him to criminals as black as the night itself. He stood stock still, not knowing what to do, cold with desperation, his morale gone; a pitiful spectacle.
The Rocky Mountains had him by the throat.
CHAPTER XXII
THE FRIENDLY BROOK
Then he heard a voice. It was not the voice of either of his comrades, nor was it the voice of either outlaw. It was a voice soft and low, the voice of the Rocky Mountains calling to him the way to go; the scarce audible murmur of the stream far in the distance.