Galloway (1970) Read Online Free PDF

dew heavy upon the grass and upon me as well, but I slept and the wind whispered in the aspen leaves, and in the darkness the taste of smoke came to my tongue, and the smell of it to my nose. Cold and dark it was when the smell of it awakened me, and I sat up, shivering with a chill that chattered my teeth. Listening into the night I heard nothing, but then my eye caught a faint gleam and I looked again and it was a dying fire, not fifty yards off.
    Slowly and carefully I got to my feet. Indians. At least a dozen, and one of them awake and on guard. They must have made camp after I fell asleep, although it was late for Indians to be about, but come daylight they would surely find me. Easing my feet into my moccasins, I gathered what I had to carry and slipped away. When I was well away from their camp and in the bottom, I started to run.
    The earth was soft underfoot, and the one thing I needed now was distance. They would find my camp in the morning and come after me. I ran and walked for what must have been a couple of hours, and then I went into the stream.
    The moon was up and the whole country was bathed in such a white beauty a man could not believe, the aspens silvery bright, the pines dark and still. The cold water felt good to my feet but because the current was swift and the footing uncertain, I took my time. After awhile I came out on the bank and sat down, my muscles aching and weary, my feet sore. Carefully I dried them with handfuls of grass and clumps of soft sage.
    Light was breaking when I started again. Within the hour they would be on my trail, and they would move much faster than I could. I did not know the Utes, but the stories I'd heard were mixed, and this was their country.
    Now I moved from rock to rock, carrying a small flat rock in my hand to put down wherever I might leave a footprint. The rock left a mark but it was indefinite and might have been caused by any number of things. The Utes might find me, but I did not intend it should be easy, and I could drop the rock I carried and step from it to some other surface that would leave no mark.
    Something rustled in the brush. Turning sharply I was only in time to see leaves moving where something had passed by. Crouching near a rock, I waited, but nothing came. Moving toward the brush, spear poised, I found only the faintest of tracks ... the wolf.
    He was with me still, a rare thing for a lone wolf to stalk a man for so long a time. Yet he was out there now, in the brush, stalking me for a kill. Still, there must be easier game.
    Twice I made my way through thick groves of aspen, trying to leave no sign of my passing, yet always alert for a place to hide. By now they had found my fire, and were on my trail.
    My feet were beginning to bleed again. I heard the cry of an eagle that was no eagle, and the cry came from where no eagle would be. One of them had found some sign I'd left and was calling the others.
    They would find me now, for they could scatter out and pick up what sign I'd left. I was too slow, too tired, and the going was too rough for me not to make mistakes.
    Suddenly, there was no place to go. There'd been no trail. I'd just been following the lines of least resistance, and now the mountainside broke sharply off and I stood on the brink of a cliff with a deep pool of water lying thirty feet below. I could hear water falling somewhere near, but the surface below was unruffled and clear. There was no hesitation in me.
    This far I had come, and there could be no thought of turning back. So I dropped my gear into the water, and feet first, I jumped.
    A moment of falling, then my body struck the water and knifed into it. There was intense cold. I went down, down, and then as I was coming up my head bumped something and it was the quiver of arrows I'd made. A few yards away was the bow. Gathering them up, I swam for the only shore there was, a narrow white-sand beach back under the overhang of the cliff from which I'd jumped.
    No more than