The sun dropped lower and lower.

In the open fields there was still light, but the thicket was gray with the subdued shadows of the gloaming.
John Jay might have slept on all night had not a leaf fluttered slowly down from the tree above, and brushed across his face.

He opened his eyes, looking all around him in a bewildered way.

Then he sat up, and peered through the bushes.

A cold perspiration covered him when he realized that it was dusk and that he was in the middle of the gander thicket.