"He surely is some worker!" vowed Mike Haggart.
The day passed and evening came on apace. Chenoa Pete rolled himself in a blanket and lay down. Mike Haggart set himself to watch till midnight. The moon rose and the stars came out.
All through that long day, loping and walking by turns, no definite plan formed itself in Lucky Jim's mind with regard to the manner of successfully handling the crooks even should he succeed in intercepting them. True, he had their lariat about his waist, and his gun was still in its holster at his belt—he had dried and cleaned it the first time he rested. Even so, the idea of shooting them down in cold blood was repugnant to him, and besides, might not be wholly effective, for the raft would continue to drift. But walking or running, the problem never for a moment left his mind.
He rested for two full hours at sunset, but when the moon shot up he resumed his way. As when he crossed the flat in the spring, he was going it blind. In reality, however, his sense of direction was so highly developed that he might have been racing along a chalked line that ended opposite Totatla City. During the years he had spent in Alaska, Lucky Jim had taken longer chances, and many of them, to save a long detour. He was a man perfectly at home in the wilderness.
For the first time in his carefree life he worried over an issue, dreaded the approach of the crucial moment. Not for his own, be it understood, but for Dad Manslow's sake. He would have done just as much on his own behalf, but he never would have worried, racked his brain for a solution to the affair. He would have trusted to what he called his luck, and backed the same with his indefatigable spirit and energy.
At six in the morning he encountered a rather wide back slough, the quicksand on the edge of which gave him pause. A bank of blue smoke rimmed with sunlight away to the left he guessed must be Totatla City. He reasoned, therefore, that he could not be far from the river. He was nervous, but never for a moment did he forget the main chance. He must get to the river just as fast as he could. He started along the bank of the slough.
Lucky Jim no longer ran. Nor, despite his long fast and his almost continuous effort, could it be said that he staggered. It was a queer, humped-up lope. The joints of his knees were so stiff, and ached so that, in order to avoid bending them, when taking a step he flung his leg out from his body. On the stage or in a motion picture, his manner of locomotion would have been considered a scream.
The lariat was still about his waist, and the gun still hung at his belt.
He came upon the river suddenly on rounding a bend. To stave off reaction, the desire to fling himself down and forget everything, he walked into the river and headed for an island against which the current nibbled. At the deepest point, which was a mere dozen feet from the island, the water just reached his armpits. He breasted this on an upstream slant and finally effected a landing.