The smoke was curling lazily over the
heads of a party of men in the road, while the huge bulk of a grizzly
was disappearing in the distance. A battue of the escaping animals had
commenced! In the bitterness of his heart he caught at the horrible
suggestion, and resolved to save her from them or die with her there.
How fast he ran, or the time it took him to reach the woods, has never
been known. Their outlines were already hidden when he entered them. To
a sense less keen, a courage less desperate, and a purpose less
unaltered than Low's, the wood would have been impenetrable. The
central fire was still confined to the lofty tree-tops, but the
downward rush of wind from time to time drove the smoke into the aisles
in blinding and suffocating volumes. To simulate the creeping animals,
and fall to the ground on hands and knees, feel his way through the
underbrush when the smoke was densest, or take advantage of its
momentary lifting, and without uncertainty, mistake, or hesitation
glide from tree to tree in one undeviating course, was possible only to
an experienced woodsman.
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