"Quick! quick! out again! The man will escape! He has come back on his tracks, and rounded!" I saw our mistake at once.

We had left our companion out there alone, rendered helpless by the care of all three horses.
Colebrook said never a word.

He was a man of action.

He turned with instinctive haste, and followed our own spoor back again with his hands and knees to the opening in the thicket by which we had first entered.
Before we could reach it, however, two shots rang out clear in the direction where we had left poor Doolittle and the horses.

Then a sharp cry broke the stillness--the cry of a wounded man.