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That move had lain outside his calculations. He had gleaned enough from Mrs Hensor, as well as from his own observation, to feel sure that Maule and Lady Bridget were in love with each other, and he had never supposed that they would part so abruptly. The head-station was very shorthanded in the absence of Ninnis and the stockmen, and Harris had been obliged to go out by himself on the man-hunt.
He was too exhausted to care greatly if the man-hunt ended with him a prisoner if it would only end. To be out of this sea of jelly-like mud would be enough. He lay there breathing heavily, his body aching and throbbing. Minutes passed. Then he became vaguely aware of a faint roaring. He listened for a moment, but it meant nothing to him. Presently the sound came to his ears again, and he sat up.
Indeed, he invented a form of man-hunt which for sheer devilish cruelty has been only once matched in the West by the cani del duca when the crazy Gian Maria ruled in Milan. Well may his milder successor, Firuz Shah, have removed to yet another new capital. Well may he have sought to disarm the wrath to come by pious deeds and lavish charities.
When the posse finally caught sight of the man they were after far out across the level and riding toward the west, they knew at once that he was making for the Concho and what protection his fellows might afford him under the circumstances. This did not fit into their scheme. The man-hunt had tuned their pulses to a high pitch.
Dick, Warner and Pennington armed themselves with rifles of the fallen, and they felt fierce thrills of joy as they crept forward. Burning with the battle fever, and enraged against this man Slade, Dick put all his soul in the man-hunt. He merely hoped that Victor Woodville was not there. He would fire willingly at any of the rest. Before they had gone far Slade and his riflemen began to fire.
Once he stopped to listen; he heard the remaining half of the man-hunt leaving the ranch. They were riding hard. Thereafter Pringle had no mercy on his horse. Ride as he might, those who followed had the inner circle; when he rounded the fires and struck the hill his start was perilously slight.
Robert did not see the Owl go away, but he was quite sure that he had gone, because it was just the sort of thing that such a skilled forest fighter would do. The fog thickened again, and, in a few more minutes, both lines shifted somewhat. Then he had to watch new stumps at new points, and his thoughts were once more in tune with those about him, concentrated on the battle and the man-hunt.
If one breath should get out that any one suspected well, this is a man-hunt." "Who's the man?" "An enemy of McCarthy." "Whom you are going to find for him?" "Perhaps." "And you were putting up that job for me as part of your pay!" Percy Darrow smiled slowly. "As all of my pay from McCarthy," said he. "I was just bedeviling him."
The affair had taken place early that morning, but the telegraph wires had been cut in several places on both sides of the damaged line, so that no precise news of what had happened had reached either Vancouver on the west, or Golden on the east, till the afternoon. The whole countryside was now in movement, and a vigorous man-hunt was proceeding on both sides of the line.
I saw his eyes light up when De Morbihan mentioned that name, after dinner; and if ever I saw hatred in a man's face, it was in his as he watched you, when you weren't looking." "As far as I know, I never heard of him before," Lanyard said carelessly. "I fancy it's nothing more than the excitement of a man-hunt.
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