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The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky by Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander) Altsheler
page 12 of 294 (04%)
warriors, the broad, brown back of the one in front of him always leading
the way.

It seemed to him that they sought the densest part of the undergrowth,
where the night shadows lay thickest, and he was wise enough to know that
they did it to hide their trail from possible pursuit. Then he thought of
Henry, his comrade, the prince of trailers! He might come! He would come!
Paul's blood leaped at the thought, and his head lifted with hope.

Clouds swept up, the moon died, and in the darkness Paul had little idea
of direction. He only knew that they were still traveling fast amid the
thick bushes, and that when he made too much noise in passing one or other
of the brown savages would prod him with the muzzle of a gun as a hint to
be more careful. His face became bruised and his feet weary, but at last
they stopped in an opening among the trees, by the side of a little brook
that trickled over shining pebbles.

The warriors wasted little time. They rebound Paul's feet in such tight
fashion that he could scarcely move, and then, lying down near him, went
to sleep so quickly that it seemed to Paul they accomplished the feat by
some sort of a mechanical arrangement. Tired as he was, he could not close
his own eyes yet, and he longed for his comrade. Would he come?

Paul's sensitive nerves were again keenly alive to every phase of his
cruel situation. The warriors, lying almost at his feet, were monsters,
not men, and this wilderness, which in its finer aspects he loved, was
bristling in the darkness with terrors known and unknown. Yet his clogged
and weary brain slept at last, and when he awoke again it was day--a
beautiful day of white and gold light, with the autumnal tints of the
forest all about him, and the leaves rustling in a gentle wind.
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