This action marked his acknowledgment of his situation: he had voluntarily sought the refuge of the outlaws; he was beyond the pale.

A bitter and passionate curse passed his lips as he spurred his horse into the brakes on that alien shore.
He rode perhaps twenty miles, not sparing his horse nor caring whether or not he left a plain trail.
"Let them hunt me!" he muttered.
When the heat of the day began to be oppressive, and hunger and thirst made themselves manifest, Duane began to look about him for a place to halt for the noon-hours.

The trail led into a road which was hard packed and smooth from the tracks of cattle.

He doubted not that he had come across one of the roads used by border raiders.

He headed into it, and had scarcely traveled a mile when, turning a curve, he came point-blank upon a single horseman riding toward him.