In an instant she grabbed the rifle from Eric’s sleeping bag, untied the other two horses, swung up on the mare, and, yanking on the reins of Eric’s mount, dug her heels into the mare’s flanks.

By the time she had dragged Eric’s horse through the heavy timber for over an hour, Nicole decided he wouldn’t be able to find it again. She emptied the food and extra ammunition out of his saddlebag and shooed the horse away to fend for itself.

Two hours later she heard the helicopter. At first she felt it as much as heard it. When the pulsating waves became the distinct roar of an aircraft, she gave a cry of joy. Swinging down quickly, she wrapped the reins of her horse around a tree limb and ran toward a large area where the trees were widely scattered and the brush was low. But before she reached the clearing, the helicopter came in at about five hundred feet, almost directly overhead. She screamed and yelled and waved her arms wildly, but she was still in a fairly thick stand of trees, and the helicopter swept over her and was gone.

With disappointment so sharply bitter it almost made her choke, Nicole slowly lowered her hands and turned back. “Hey!” Her mouth dropped open as she saw her horse, frightened by the pounding noise, disappearing through the trees, taking her bag, the rifle, her food, and her transportation with it. She leaped forward, dodging branches and jumping over logs in a wild attempt to catch it. “Come back here!” she screamed.

For a maddening half an hour she tried to recapture the horse, but every time she got within thirty or forty feet of it, the wildeyed animal bolted headlong into forest. Exhausted, on the verge of tears, afraid that Eric was conscious now and looking for her, she finally gave up and let it go.

With a moan that was half pain and half pleasure, Nicole peeled off her socks and thrust her throbbing feet into the icy water of the stream. Wearily she lay back on the grassy bank and closed her eyes, letting the sun, now full of afternoon heat, beat on her face. The warmth soothed and relaxed her, and for the five-hundredth time she cursed her stupidity in tying the horse so carelessly.

In the three hours since she’d lost the horse, her feet had felt every rock, every twisted root, every uneven stump and log she’d stumbled over. Soon after the horse bolted, Nicole had found a small creek and followed it downward. It joined another creek and then another until it formed a small, turbulent river, now a good fifteen or twenty feet across. Three times she had had to ford streams, and her wet socks and tennis shoes only added to the misery of her feet.