ried Buck, in an awed tone.

He was pointing with one arm outstretched in a direction where the
ruined stockade had fallen, leaving a great gaping space. The opening
was sharply silhouetted against a wide glow of red and yellow light,
which, as they watched, seemed to grow brighter with each passing
moment.

Each man was striving to grasp the full significance of what he
beheld. It was fire. It needed no second thought to convince them of
that. But where--what? It was away across the valley, beyond the
further lip which rose in a long, low slope. It was to the left of
Devil's Hill, but very little. For that, too, was dimly silhouetted,
even at that distance.

The Padre was the first to speak.

"It's big. But it's not the camp," he said. "Maybe it's the--forest."

For a moment Buck made no answer. But a growing look of alarm was in
his straining eyes.

"It's not a prairie fire," the Padre went on. "There's not enough
grass that way. Say, d'you think----" A sudden fear had leapt into his
eyes, too, and his question remained unfinished.

Buck stirred. He took a deep breach. The alarm in his eyes had
suddenly possessed his whole being. Something seemed to be clutching
his heart, so that he was almost stifled.

"It's none o' them things," he said, striving to keep his voice
steady. Then of a sudden he reached out, and clutched the arm of his
friend, so that his powerful fingers sank deep into its flesh.

"It's the--farm!" he cried, in a tone that rang with a terrible dread.
"Come on! The hosses!" And he dashed from the room before the last
sound of his voice had died out.

The Padre was hard on his heels. With danger abroad he was no laggard.
Joan--poor little Joan! And there were miles to be covered before her
lover could reach her.

But the dark shadows of disaster were crowding fast. Evil was abroad
searching every corner of the mountain world for its prey. Almost in a
moment the whole scene was changed, and the dull inertia of past days
was swept aside amidst a hurricane of storm and demoniacal tempest.

A crash of appalling thunder greeted the ears of the speeding men. The
earth seemed to shake to its very foundations. Ear-splitting
detonations echoed from crag to crag, and down deep into the valleys
and canyons, setting the world alive with a sudden chaos. Peal after
peal roared over the hills, and the lightning played, hissing and
shrieking upon ironstone crowns, like a blinding display of
pyrotechnics