Slowly the green of Cottonwoods sank behind the slope, and at last a wavering line of purple sage met the blue of sky.
To avoid being seen, to get away, to hide his trail--these were the sole ideas in his mind as he headed for Deception Pass, and he directed all his acuteness of eye and ear, and the keenness of a rider's judgment for distance and ground, to stern accomplishment of the task.

He kept to the sage far to the left of the trail leading into the Pass.

He walked ten miles and looked back a thousand times.

Always the graceful, purple wave of sage remained wide and lonely, a clear, undotted waste.

Coming to a stretch of rocky ground, he took advantage of it to cross the trail and then continued down on the right.