do, into his inner self, giving himself up to that inmost guide.
He was the captain of the ship, but the pilot, the chart and
compass, all, were that deep-implanted instinct. One thousand
feet above the trees the inscrutable whisper came, and Arnaux in
arrowy swiftness now was pointing for the south-southeast. The
little flashes of white fire on each side were lost in the low
sky, and the reverent robber of Syracuse saw Arnaux nevermore.

The fast express was steaming down the valley. It was far ahead,
but Arnaux overtook and passed it, as the flying wild Duck passes
the swimming Muskrat. High in the valleys he went, low over the
hills of Chenango, where the pines were combing the breezes.

Out from his oak-tree eyrie a Hawk came wheeling and sailing,
silent, for he had marked the Flyer, and meant him for his prey.
Arnaux turned neither right nor left, nor raised nor lowered his
flight, nor lost a wing-beat. The Hawk was in waiting in the gap
ahead, and Arnaux passed him, even as a Deer in his prime may
pass by a Bear in his pathway. Home! home! was the only burning
thought, the blinding impulse.

Beat, beat, beat, those flashing pinions went with speed
unslacked on the now familiar road. In an hour the Catskills were
at hand. In two hours he was passing over them. Old friendly
places, swiftly coming now, lent more force to his wings. Home!
home! was the silent song that his heart was singing. Like the
traveller dying of thirst, that sees the palm-trees far ahead,
his brilliant eyes took in the distant smoke of Manhattan.

Out from the crest of the Catskills there launched a Falcon.