Alden, who heard nothing Bertha said, was on the road shouting to the driver, "The man is mad. He is dangerous. Head him off down the road. Don't let him escape." The words rang sharp. That portion of the hill into which the stranger had run was bordered by the rock precipice, which came up to the road beyond where the carriage stood. Alden raised his voice to a reverberating shout, addressing the fugitive. "Come back. If you don't come back we will loose the dogs." Durgan was trying to take the furious dogs from the girl, but she would not relax her hold. She was crying and moaning to the dogs to quiet them, and entreating Durgan to leave her with wild whispers. "Oh, save him; for God's sake, save him. Bring him back to me." She ground her teeth in anger at Alden's shout. "For pity's sake, stop that cruel man shouting. Call him off," she demanded, as if Alden were a dog; "call him off." Durgan followed Alden. "She won't give you the dogs," he said. "It was the sight of the dogs that frightened him," said Alden. "He is a maddened criminal, and a very dangerous man, whoever he may be. His weakness was feigned. He's skulking; but he's as good as caught, for he can't get over the precipice." Durgan heard Bertha dragging and coaxing the dogs up the trail. In a few minutes she would have them shut up. He felt glad of this. In Alden's anger there was no mercy. The driver was making torches with sticks, lamp oil, and a bit of rope. Before long, the three men had a glare which so illumined the wood that each tree-trunk threw a sharp, black shadow. They distributed the lights to lessen the shadows. They hunted all the slope between the road and the rock wall, but the fugitive was not found. "If he had fallen over we should certainly have heard the fall," they said. The silent driver added, "He swore he'd be good for forty dollars if I'd get him here and back; reckon I ain't the man to lose half a chance of that. I kep' my ears open; he ain't rolled over." Book III Chapter XXXI A FLASH OF LIGHT The bank shelved: no one could come on the precipice unwarned. Soon they found a travelling boot, and after that, at some distance, another. They felt sure now that the fugitive had climbed one of the trees, throwing away his boots as far as possible. Looking up, they perceived the hopelessness, in that case, of their quest. The arms of the forest spread out above them thick, gnarled, and black with the heaviest foliage of the year. The flame of their torches glared only on the under side of the boughs. Light and shadow were thrown in fantastic patches into the higher canopies, where also the lurid smoke of their torches curled. They went back to the road; the small, neat New Yorker tripping first, his torch dying, the boots of the fugitive in his other hand; the driver, in old, loose coat, striding indolently toward the horses; Durgan, lingering as he went, with sinewy arm throwing his light high and looking upward.