Gradually then his confidence began to come back, and notwithstanding that his head was throbbing like a piston, he was soon half-minded to retrace his steps and mete out punishment, for the injury that had been inflicted upon him.
But he at once discarded the idea when, upon bringing himself to a halt to consider it, he found that his legs were so wobbly that he would not be able to use his pistol arm unless he were lying prone, and so he resumed his journey.
Three-quarters of an hour passed, and having emerged from the sandhills and now crossing over a meadow, he was just reckoning that he could not be very far off the bitumen road, when, upon one of his frequent turnings round to make sure no one was coming up behind him, he suddenly caught sight of two moving objects less than a hund
