It was as if the willows were clutching hands, his enemies, fiendishly impeding his progress.

He tore his clothes on sharp branches and his flesh suffered many a prick.

But in a terrible earnestness he kept on until he brought up hard against a cottonwood tree.
There he leaned and rested.

He found himself as nearly exhausted as he had ever been, wet with sweat, his hands torn and burning, his breast laboring, his legs stinging from innumerable bruises.

While he leaned there to catch his breath he listened for the pursuing hounds.