ered on the trail, it seemed to his excited
fancy that every inch of ground was crying to the valley below, "He's
coming," the wind that blew past him seemed filled with purpose, every
eddying gust awoke in him a greater desire to reach the place of danger
before the wind should rise to higher gusts, and as the needles of the
pines whispered overhead it seemed to Wilbur that they murmured, "Hurry,
hurry, if you want to be there on time." Over and over again, he found
himself on the point of using the whip or spurs to induce a greater
burst of speed, but as often as he did so, the old short, curtly-worded
counsels of Merritt came back to him, never to press his horse if the
ride was to be of any length, and he grew to believe that the animal
knew as well as the rider the errand on which he was bound.

He had thought, before starting, of riding back to his camp and
telephoning to Rifle-Eye, but the knowledge that after all it might be a
little fire kept him back. All the tales that he had ever heard about
forest fires rushed through his mind, but he resolutely set them aside
to watch his horse's path, to hold him in where he would be apt to
stumble, to give him his head on rising ground, and to bring him to
speed where the trail was easy to follow. Two hours he rode, his horse
well in hand, until he came to the place where he had decided from his
lookout point that he would have to leave the trail and plunge through
the forest itself.

This was a very different matter, and Wilbur found himself wondering how
his horse kept his footing. He was not riding Kit, for which he was
glad, as in leaving the trail and plunging downhill he had struck some
parts of the forest where undergrowth was present, and his favorite
mare's slender legs would have been badly scratched. Also the footing
grew dangerous and uncertain. There had been many windfalls in the
forest, and now was no time to take them quietly; a flying leap, not
knowing what might be on the other side, a stumble, perhaps, which sent
the boy's heart into his mouth, a quick recovery, and they were off
again, only to find, perhaps, a few yards further on, a bowlder-strewn
gully which it would have been madness to take at other than a walk. But
the boy chafed terribly at each and every stay to his ride, and he had
to hold himself in hand as much as he had his horse.

Little by little the exhilaration of the ride stole into his veins. He
was alone in the forest, he and his h