He sat up, rubbing his eyes. The same dim twilight obscured everything around. For an instant he was confused.
"Why, I've been asleep." He got to his feet. "Do you think it's been long, Anina? Maybe the men have started off. Let's go see."
Anina had already been to see; she had awakened some little time before and, leaving Mercer asleep, had flown up ahead over the tree‑tops.
The men were just then breaking camp, and she had returned to wake up Mercer. They ate their last remaining pieces of bread, drank from the little pool of water, and were soon ready to start on after their quarry.
"How long will it take them to reach the gorge, Anina?"
"Not very long—four times farther reach Lone City."
By which Mercer inferred that within three or four hours, perhaps, they would be at the place where they hoped to turn the men back.
They started off slowly up the trail, Mercer carrying the folded blanket, and Anina wearing the fur jacket. They soon came upon the smoldering fire that marked the other party's night encampment. The men were, Mercer judged, perhaps a mile or so ahead of them.
They continued on, walking slowly, for they did not want to overtake the slow‑traveling men ahead. The look of the country, what they could see of it in the darkness, was unchanged. The trail seemed bending steadily to the right, and after a time they came to the bank of a river which the trail followed. It was a broad stream, perhaps a quarter of a mile across, with a considerable current sweeping down to the sea.
They kept to the trail along the river bank for nearly another hour. Then Anina abruptly halted, pulling Mercer partly behind a tree trunk.