With a howl which justified his name, Wolf for an instant released his
hold. That instant allowed the girl's escape. She leaped away like a
deer and darted into the forest. Yelling with pain and rage, Wolf
pursued her. She gained on him steadily as she ran, but there was a
light snow upon the ground, and she could be followed by the trail
which her pursuer took up doggedly and determinedly. He knew that he
could tire her out and catch her in time. He solaced himself for her
temporary escape by thinking, as he ran, how fiercely he would beat his
bride before starting for the cave again, and as he thought his teeth
showed like those of a dog of to-day.
The chase lasted for hours, and Red Lips had gained perhaps a mile upon
her pursuer when her strength began to flag. The pace was telling upon
her. She had run many miles. She was almost hopeless of escape when she
emerged into a little glade, where sat a man gnawing contentedly at a
raw rabbit. He leaped to his feet as the girl appeared, but a moment
later recognized her and smiled. The man was Yellow Hair. He reached out
part of the rabbit he was devouring, and Red Lips, whose breakfast had,
as already mentioned, been a light one, tore at it and consumed it in a
moment. Then she told of what had happened.
"We will kill Wolf, and you shall live with me," said Yellow Hair.
Red Lips assented eagerly, and the two consulted together. Near them was
a hill, one side of which was a precipice. At the base of the precipice
ran a path. The result of the consultation was that Yellow Hair left the
girl, and making a swift circuit, came upon the precipice from the
farther side, and crouched low upon its summit. The girl ran along the
path at the bottom of the declivity for some distance, then, entering a
defile which crossed it at right angles, herself made a turn, climbed
the hill and joined Yellow Hair. From where they were lying they could
see the glade they had just left.
Wolf entered the glade, and noted where the footsteps of the girl and
those of a man came together. For a moment or two he appeared troubled
and suspicious; then his face cleared. He saw that the tracks had
diverged again. He had recognized the man's tracks as those of Yellow
Hair.
"Yellow Hair is afraid of my strong arm," he thought. "He dare not stay
with Red Lips. I shall catch her soon and beat her and take her with
me."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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