When she hit the water, he went off over her head, and when he got up, found he was neck deep in muck. The creek ran straight down the middle of the meadow. When he finally managed to scrape the mud from his eyes, the mare was nowhere to be seen. He had dropped the jaw rope, and she had gone on. He couldn’t even hear her hooves. He wanted to look for her, then realized he hadn’t time for that. This was the stream the mountain man had been talking about. Horse or not, his orders had been definite—head up the middle of the stream, and don’t stop.

He stepped deeper into the water, but didn’t start upstream immediately. He felt sad that the mare was gone. He would have liked to keep her awhile, and though he didn’t think much of the Pawnees he admired their horses.

“Thank you,” he said quietly, looking off into the darkness. “Thank you, little mare. It was a good ride.”

And he started walking in the water, only vaguely aware of the chill.

Real dawn caught him nearly four miles up the stream. He had long since left the meadow behind, and the stream was now bordered by thick scrub pine trees. He was very tired, and ached all over from his many falls from the mare. But he knew that if he stopped before getting far enough upstream, he might not meet the mountain man again.

So he kept walking; not in miles, or even yards, but in steps. All day long he did that. He quit thinking of food early in the morning; it did nothing but make him hungry. And somehow, without his having been aware of the passing of a day, evening found him still trudging, still moving. He didn’t know how far he’d come, only hoped it was far enough.

Just as the first night birds began clipping and wheeling over the stream for insects, Francis Alphonse Tucket pulled himself onto the bank beneath a clump of overhanging willows and dropped like a bag of sand.

In five seconds, wet clothes and all, he wouldn’t have heard the Indians even if they beat their drums right next to his head.

———— Chapter Six ————

FRANCIS AWAKENED to a heavenly smell—the aroma of boiling coffee. He was afraid that if he opened his eyes, the smell of coffee would vanish. But when a full ten seconds had passed, and the smell was still there, he knew he hadn’t been dreaming.

He sat up and saw the mountain man sitting over a small fire about ten feet away. His back was to Francis, but he spoke at once without turning around.

“ ’Bout time you opened up a mite—day’s half gone already. You sleep like a fancy city man.”