you have to."

The troopers went at it as if they enjoyed the task, forcing their
restive horses through the thickets, and roughly handling more than one
who ventured to question their authority. Yet the work was over in
less time than it takes to tell, the discomfited regulators driven
pell-mell down the hill and back into the town, the eager cavalrymen
halting only at the command of the bugle. Brant, confident of his
first sergeant in such emergency, merely paused long enough to watch
the men deploy, and then pressed straight up the hill, alone and on
foot. That danger to the besieged was yet imminent was very evident.
The black spiral of smoke had become an enveloping cloud, spreading
rapidly in both directions from its original starting-point, and
already he could distinguish the red glare of angry flames leaping
beneath, fanned by the wind into great sheets of fire, and sweeping
forward with incredible swiftness. These might not succeed in reaching
the imprisoned men, but the stifling vapor, the suffocating smoke held
captive by that overhanging rock, would prove a most serious menace.

He encountered a number of men running down as he toiled anxiously
forward, but they avoided him, no doubt already aware of the trouble
below and warned by his uniform. He arrived finally where the ground
was charred black and covered with wood ashes, still hot under foot and
smoking, but he pressed upward, sheltering his eyes with uplifted arm,
and seeking passage where the scarcity of underbrush rendered the zone
of fire less impassable. On both sides trees were already wrapped in
flame, yet he discovered a lane along which he stumbled until a fringe
of burning bushes extended completely across it. The heat was almost
intolerable, the crackling of the ignited wood was like the reports of
pistols, the dense pall of smoke was suffocating. He could see
scarcely three yards in advance, but to the rear the narrow lane of
retreat remained open. Standing there, as though in the mouth of a
furnace, the red flames scorching his face, Brant hollowed his hands
for a call.

"Hampton!" The word rang out over the infernal crackling and roaring
like the note of a trumpet.

"Ay! What is it?" The returning voice was plainly not Hampton's, yet
it came from directly in front, and not faraway.

"Who are you? Is that you, Marshal?"

"Thet's the ticket," answered the voice, gruffly, "an' just as full o'
fight es ever."

Brant lif