Bruised and battered as he was, he had a moment's elation, for he had hidden his tracks.

Once more he mounted the burro and rode on.

The hour was the blackest of the night when he made the thicket which inclosed his old camp.

Here he turned the burro loose in the grass near the spring, and then lay down on his old bed of leaves.
He felt only vaguely, as outside things, the ache and burn and throb of the muscles of his body.

But a dammed-up torrent of emotion at last burst its bounds, and the hour that saw his release from immediate action was one that confounded him in the reaction of his spirit.