ot out safe, though they must be doin'
some tall worryin' about you. I wonder how they feel about me an' Bud
an' Bill? A little prematoore roastin' for us, eh? Wal, wal!"

We went back to the camp. I lay down near the fire and fell asleep. Some
time in the night I awoke. The fire was still burning brightly. Bud and
Bill were lying with their backs to it almost close enough to scorch.
Herky sat in his shirtsleeves. The smoke of his pipe and the smoke of
the campfire wafted up together. Then I saw and felt that he had covered
me with his coat and vest.

I slept far into the next day. Herky was in camp alone. The others had
gone, Herky said, and he would not tell me where. He did not appear as
cheerful as usual. I suspected he had quarreled with his companions,
very likely about what was to be done with me. The day passed, and again
I slept. Herky awakened me before it was light.

"Come, kid, we'll rustle in to Holston today."

We cooked our breakfast of venison, and then Herky went in search of the
horses. They had browsed far up the ravine, and the dawn had broken by
the time he returned. Target stood well to be saddled, nor did he
bolt when I climbed up. Perhaps that ride I gave him had chastened and
subdued his spirit. Well, it had nearly killed me. Herky mounted the one
horse left, a sorry-looking pack-pony, and we started down the ravine.

An hour of steady descent passed by before we caught sight of any burned
forest land. Then as we descended into the big canyon we turned a curve
and saw, far ahead to the left, a black, smoky, hideous slope. We kept
to the right side of the brook and sheered off just as we reached a
point opposite, where the burned line began. Fire had run up that side
till checked by bare weathered slopes and cliffs. As far down the brook
as eye could see through the smoky haze there stretched that black
line of charred, spear-pointed pines, some glowing, some blazing, all
smoking.

From time to time, as we climbed up the slope, I looked back. The higher
I got the more hideous became the outlook over the burned district. I
was glad when Herky led the way into the deep shade of level forest,
shutting out the view. It would take a hundred years to reforest those
acres denuded of their timber by the fire of a few days. But as hour
after hour went by, with our trail leading through miles and miles of
the same old forest that had bewitched me, I began to feel a little less
grief at the thought of