horty and he had done some brand-burning through a wet blanket.
But he had not gone so far that a return to respectability was
impossible. A little rustling on the quiet, with no evidence to fasten
it on one, was nothing to bar a man from society. He had gone more
definitely wrong after Sanders came back to Malapi. The young ex-convict,
he chose to think, was responsible for the circumstances that made of him
an outlaw. Crawford and Sanders together had exposed him and driven him
from the haunts of men to the hills. He hated them both with a bitter,
morose virulence his soul could not escape.

Throughout the day he continued to drink. This gave him no refuge from
himself. He still brooded in the inferno of his own thought-circle. It is
possible that a touch of madness had begun to affect his brain. Certainly
his subsequent actions would seem to bear out this theory.

Revenge! The thought of it spurred him every waking hour, roweling his
wounded pride cruelly. There was a way within reach of his hand, one
suggested by Steelman's whisperings, though never openly advocated by
the sheepman. The jealousy of the man urged him to it, and his consuming
vanity persuaded him that out of evil might come good. He could make the
girl love him. So her punishment would bring her joy in the end. As for
Crawford and Sanders, his success would be such bitter medicine to them
that time would never wear away the taste of it.

At dusk he rose and resaddled. Under the stars he rode back to Malapi. He
knew exactly what he meant to do and how he meant to do it.

CHAPTER XXXIX

THE TUNNEL

Dave knew no rest that night. He patrolled his line from San Jacinto to
Cattle and back again, stopping always to lend a hand where the attack
was most furious. The men of his crew were weary to exhaustion, but the
pressure of the fire was so great that they dared not leave the front.
As soon as one blaze was beaten out, another started. A shower of sparks
close to Cattle Canon swept over the ridge and set the thick grass afire.
This was smothered with saddle blankets and with sand and dirt thrown
from shovels.

Nearer to San Jacinto Canon the danger was more acute. Dave did not dare
back-fire on account of the wind. He dynamited the timber to make a
trail-break against the howling, roaring wall of fire plunging forward.

As soon as the flames seized the timber the heat grew more intense. The
sound of falling trees as they crashed down marked