“That we will not,” I cried, hotly. “We’ll bear thee away to safety, spite of all. Look but now! We gain upon them. A quarter hour will see us well beyond their reach.” “I cannot bear it,” he answered faintly. “I bleed full sorely, and I needs must rest.” With that his color left him utterly; his blue eyes twitched and closed; he fainted, and but for Cedric’s arm must surely have fallen. Cedric turned to me and whispered: “Save him we must, or we are no true men.” “Surely we must save him,” I echoed, “but how shall we compass it? If he have not rest full soon and the dressing of his hurt, he will surely die.” “One chance there still remains,” he answered softy, “though in the essay we give o’er our own near sight of safety. What say’st thou? Shall we attempt it?” “With all my heart,” I cried. “Shall we make stand in some rock cranny hereabouts?” To this the forester made no reply. We were riding down a slope toward a wide but shallow stream which we must ford. The outlaws were hid from view by the rise behind us, but we could still hear their shouts and knew that they had by no means given o’er the hope of reaching us. Midway in the current Cedric sharply pulled his horse’s head to the right, and leaving the pathway utterly, spurred him at a trot up the sandy and pebbly bed of the stream. A turn soon hid the ford from view, and this not a moment too soon, for now again we heard the outlaws coming down the hill in hot pursuit. Cedric drew rein for an instant, and we heard them splashing through the shallows of the ford, and then their running feet on the path beyond. A bow-shot farther on we drew out from the stream bed and made better going in the open woods of a valley which led upwards toward the rocky hills to the northward. “Dost know this place?” I asked of Cedric. “Aye,” he answered shortly, “’tis known as Wolf’s Head Glen.” Then we came to thicker wood growth; and he had much ado to guide the war-horse safely in the tangle and to keep the boughs from the face of the stricken youth before him. Once more we entered the stream bed, and again emerged where the forest was of older growth and had little underwood to check us. We had come a mile or more from the pathway when of a sudden the forester drew rein and looked with care about him. Then he leaped down, leaving me to hold the wounded boy, and made his way up a rocky slope to a tangle of saplings and thorn bushes. These at one point he drew apart; then he disappeared, crawling on hands and knees into the darkness beyond. Speedily he returned; and now a glad and hopeful look was on his face. “’Tis well,” he said, “we yet will save him. Here is shelter and safe hiding if I mistake not.”