"Whose hand?--don't shake hit, then," retorted Sanders irritably, and, with a sudden start as though he had been rudely awakened while prattling in his sleep, Bear Cat laughed bitterly. "Hit don't make no difference," he added shortly. "I war kinderly talking ter myself. I reckon I'd better be leavin'." Hurrying through the timber, toward Dog Tate's house, Turner's mind was in a vexed quandary and after a little he irresolutely halted. His forehead was drawn and his lips were tight. "Blossom Henderson!" he muttered. "God knows I took plentiful risks thet ye mout w'ar thet name--an' yit--yit when I reads hit, seems like hit drives me plumb ravin' mad!" From the tangle of dead briars the cold rain dripped desolately. A single smear of lurid red was splashed across the west beyond the silhouetted ridges. "They're aimin' ter head me off ef I goes to'rds home," he reflected in a bitter spirit. "An' he wants thet I should fight my way through all them enemies ter shake his hand--so thet he kin die easy. I reckon hit don't make no manner of diff'rence how hard I dies myself." He covered his face with his hands and when he took them away he altered his course, setting his steps in the direction of his own house. "She said--fer _her_ sake," he repeated in a dazed voice, touched with tenderness. "I reckon I've got ter undertake hit." Never before had the woods been so efficiently picketed. Never had the net of relentless pursuit been so tight-drawn and close of mesh. For a long distance he eluded its entanglement though at times, as it grew dark, he saw the glimmer of lanterns whose portent he understood. But finally the clouds broke and a cold moon shone out to aid the pack and cut to a forlorn hope the chances of the quarry. As Bear Cat went creeping from shadow to shadow he could hear faint sounds of pursuit closing in upon him. He came at length upon a narrow road that must be crossed and for a while he bent low, listening, then stole forward, reassured. But as he reached the farther side, the black solidity of a hill-side broke not in one but in several tongues of flame and the bark of three rifles shattered the quiet. Bear Cat doubled back and cut again into the timber which he had left, running now to put a margin of distance between himself and the greater numbers. That fusillade and its echoes would bring other rifles and reinforcements. After a few pantingly stressful minutes he found himself standing at the lip of a steep bluff, and a roar of water beneath warned him that the creek, some twenty feet below, had been swollen from a trickling thread to a seething caldron. He gazed questioningly about, gauging his chances with swift calculation, since there was no time for indecision.