His face was scratched and stained; his clothing was
torn by the bushes; his hands were bloody from the sharp rocks; his body
reeked with sweat; his breath came in struggling gasps; but he would not
stop. He felt himself driven, as it were, by some inner power that made
him insensible to hardship or death. Far behind him, the sun dropped below
the sky-line of the distant San Gabriels, but he did not notice. Only when
the dusk of the coming night was upon him, did he realize that the day was
gone.
On a narrow shelf, in the lee of a great cliff, he hastily gathered
material for a fire, and, with his back to the rock, ate a little of the
food he carried. Far up on that wind-swept, mountain ridge, the night was
bitter cold. Again and again he aroused himself from the weary stupor that
numbed his senses, and replenished the fire, or forced himself to pace to
and fro upon the ledge. Overhead, he saw the stars glittering with a
strange brilliancy. In the canyon, far below, there were a few twinkling
lights to mark the Carleton ranch, and the old home of Sibyl, where Conrad
Lagrange and Myra Willard waited. Miles away, the lights of the towns
among the orange groves, twinkled like feeble stars in another feeble
world.
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