He broke trail for Jerran through a section that a great bear would have found hard going, all vines and tough saplings and snake holes that sunk beneath his sandaled feet. His body was by this time a hatched network of pain and scarlet stripes, oozing blood.
He had expected the mass of impeding vegetation to be a thin patch at best, but it went on and on, and the trees thinned so that the sky was open above them. It was a matter of time only till the globes spotted him. The hounds were louder. Once he heard the shout of a man, thin and high in the distance.
At last he was on solid, uncluttered ground again. He looked down at his skin, wondering if it would ever be smooth and whole again. His body had been gouged, gashed, torn, disfigured.
"Va-yoo hallo! Va-yoo hallo-lo-lo-lo-lo!" The terrible cry rang behind him, and turning, he saw two horsemen cresting a hill to the side of the patch of bad ground.
Then it dawned on him how they had been followed; for behind the stallioned squires rose the hills, which bordered the straight hunting course, and on them showed small dots of color, the keen-eyed watchers of the gentry. No matter where he ran on this long narrow coursing ground, there would be eyes upon him.
At least the ravening dogs were not nearby. He picked up Jerran, tucked him under one arm, and dashed for the shelter of the evergreen woods before him. The hoofs of the horses pounded behind. He dodged in among the pines, and the mournful call lifted—"Gone to earth! Go-ho-hon to earth!"
"Damn you, put me down!" rasped Jerran. "Am I a child, to be carted like this?" Revel dropped him. They skittered from tree to tree, and then a charging horse was on them, and Jerran was rolling aside, bleating with fear of the hoofs, while Revel turned and stood foursquare in the path. As the stallion all but touched him, he jumped aside, jumped back, so that the head of the beast passed him but the rider was struck and clutched and hurled from his saddle, losing his trumpet-gun as he fell. The Mink was sitting astride him before he could bounce up, and two ruthless hands took him by the throat and tore out his jugular. The second rider at that instant drew rein behind them, and lifted his own gun for a quick shot.
Jerran hurled a rock. It took the squire on the head, spilled him out of his saddle, and the subsequent proceedings interested him no more.
"Two guns, by Orbs!" crowed Revel, gathering them up. "And two horses!" He put a foot into the stirrup of the second one, but it shied madly at the touch of a bloody, naked man; dashed forward, startling the other, and together they vanished among the trees. "Hell!" said Jerran, taking one of the guns; "nothing gained but two bullets, Mink."
"Two bullets is two more slain squires. Come on!"