Then across the higher prairie,
Searching out a shorter way,
To the creek that joined the river
Where Mac crossed and got away;
Then the twinge of bitter sorrow
As he neared his journey's end,
And beheld the fringe of timber
On the banks of Old Man's bend,
Where no living sign or token
Broke the gloom that brooded there,
Save a solitary buzzard
Floating idly in the air.


22

From these high and broken hilltops
He could trace the river's flow,
And the creek's untamed meandering,
With its looplike bend below,
Seeming in the light of evening
Like a giant serpent there,
Which had coiled about its victim,
And lay resting in its lair.
Breaking through the tangled brushwood
As the night was coming on,
Creeping down the steep embankment
Where the muddy waters run,
Billy crossed within the timber
Where the shroud of deeper gloom,