Past populous villages he had fled. Time and again warriors had
put out in their canoes to intercept him, but each time the hideous
horde had swept into view to send the terrified natives shrieking
back to the shore to lose themselves in the jungle.
Nowhere in his flight had he seen aught of Jane Clayton. Not once
had his eyes rested upon her since that moment at the river's brim
his hand had closed upon the rope attached to the bow of her dugout
and he had believed her safely in his power again, only to be
thwarted an instant later as the girl snatched up a heavy express
rifle from the bottom of the craft and levelled it full at his
breast.
Quickly he had dropped the rope then and seen her float away beyond
his reach, but a moment later he had been racing up-stream toward
a little tributary in the mouth of which was hidden the canoe
in which he and his party had come thus far upon their journey in
pursuit of the girl and Anderssen.
What had become of her?
There seemed little doubt in the Russian's mind, however, but that
she had been captured by warriors from one of the several villages
she would have been compelled to pass on her way down to the sea.
Well, he was at least rid of most of his human enemies.
But at that he would gladly have had them all back in the land of
the living could he thus have been freed from the menace of the
frightful creatures who pursued him with awful relentlessness,
screaming and growling at him every time they came within sight
of him.
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