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Page 201
with little success. The Welsh had thinned the game with remarkable thoroughness and had taken the salted and dried meat with them also.
Simon tried to measure the hours since waking, but his fatigue and frustration made him distrustful of his own judgment. He could no longer tell whether his sense of time was going more slowly or more swiftly than reality. He had been dozing in the saddle too, which made the time more uncertain. The nights were often broken by raids or, worse, alerts that never culminated in raids. If the Welsh were not far ahead and could be brought to a meeting, the fight would do the whole troop good. However, the whole thing might well be a trap to draw them into the forest so that the Welsh could fall upon them in the dark.
In this situation it was better to be safe than sorry, Simon decided. A shrill whistle alerted the troop and he started forward toward the village. At least they would sleep dry tonight and, if the light held, the hunting parties might bring back something. To be warm and fed would also lift the men's spirits. Simon grinned as the thought continued; it would not lift them as much as killing a few Welshmen. But that happy consummation could not be far ahead.
Now Simon could look back on the past Welsh campaigns with gratitude, especially the two total disasters. He was not a military genius, but he never forgot a lesson learned in action either. He had not lost a single man to the divide-and-conquer tricks the hill-men played so well, and he had not been led into any of the many traps that had been set for his men either. With dogged patience he had separated false trails from true, and there were strong signs that they were approaching the base encampment of this area. This time the Welsh had underestimated the "stupid" English, as previously the English had underestimated the "barbarian" Welsh.
Simon's single real concern was whether they could

 
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