This shooting loosed a rage in Duane.

He had to fly from these men, and he hated them and himself because of it.

Always in the fury of such moments he wanted to give back shot for shot.

But he slipped on through the willows, and at length the rifles ceased to crack.
He sheered to the left again, in line with the rocky barrier, and kept on, wondering what the next mile would bring.
It brought worse, for he was seen by sharp-eyed scouts, and a hot fusillade drove him to run for his life, luckily to escape with no more than a bullet-creased shoulder.
Later that day, still undaunted, he sheered again toward the trap-wall, and found that the nearer he approached to the place where he had come down into the brake the greater his danger.

To attempt to run the blockade of that trail by day would be fatal.