plateau and dropped into a flat, and following up very fast had curved
into the timber to cross another ridge into Lost Park and on for the
Divide by way of Glacier Lake. That is what the general and Fitz
guessed. That night they all camped on the other side of the timber
ridge, at the edge of Lost Park. They were in a hurry, still, and they
made their fire in the midst of trees where they had no business to make
it. They slept late, as they always did, and not having policed the camp
or put out their fire, scarcely had they plunged into Lost Park, the
next morning, when one of them looking back saw the trees afire where
they had been.

Lost Park is a mean place; the brush makes a regular jungle of it, and
fire would go through it as through a hayfield. That fact and their
guilty conscience made them panicky. It's a pretty serious thing, to
start a forest fire. So they didn't know what to do; some wanted to go
one way, and some another; the fire grew bigger and bigger, and the
cattle and game trails wound and twisted and divided so that the gang
were separated, in the brush, and it was every man for himself. The
general was riding Mike Delavan's horse, and Mike ordered him down and
climbed on himself and made off; and the first thing the general and
Fitz knew they were abandoned. That is what they would have maneuvered
for, from the beginning, and it would have been easy, as Scouts, to work
it, among those blind trails, but the general couldn't walk. Perhaps it
was by a mistake that they were abandoned; everybody may have thought
that somebody else was tending to them, and Mike didn't know what he was
doing, he was so excited. But there they were.

The general tried to hobble, and Fitz was bound that he would carry
him--good old Fitz, with the one arm! The bushes were high, the smoke
where the fire was mounted more and more and spread as if the park was
doomed, and the crashing and shouting and swearing of the gang faded and
died away in the distance. Then the general and Fitz heard something
coming, and down the trail they were on trotted Apache the burro! He
must have turned back or have entered by a cross trail. Whew, but they
were glad to see Apache! Fitz grabbed him by the neck rope. He had a
flat pack tied on with our rope, did Apache, and Fitz hoisted the
general aboard, and away they hiked, with the general hanging on and his
foot dangling.

Now that they could travel and head as they pleased, they worked righ