and that but few feet
had ever used it. He followed swiftly, and in five minutes came
suddenly out into a great open thick with smoke, and here he saw why
Chateau Boulain would not burn. The break in the forest was a clearing
a rifle-shot in width, free of brush and grass, and partly tilled; and
it ran in a semi-circle as far as he could see through the smoke in
both directions. Thus had Black Roger safeguarded his wilderness
castle, while providing tillable fields for his people; and as David
followed the faintly beaten path, he saw green stuffs growing on both
sides of him, and through the center of the clearing a long strip of
wheat, green and very thick. Up and down through the fog of smoke he
could hear voices, and he knew it was this great, circular
fire-clearing the people of Chateau Boulain were watching and guarding.

But he saw no one as he trailed across the open. In soft patches of the
earth he found footprints deeply made and wide apart, the footprints of
hurrying men, telling him Black Roger and the Broken Man were both
ahead of him, and that Black Roger was running when he crossed the
clearing.

The footprints led him to a still more indistinct trail in the farther
forest, a trail which went straight into the face of the fire ahead. He
followed it. The distant murmur had grown into a low moaning over the
tree-tops, and with it the wind was coming stronger, and the smoke
thicker. For a mile he continued along the path, and then he stopped,
knowing he had come to the dead-line. Over him was a swirling chaos.
The fire-wind had grown into a roar before which the tree-tops bent as
if struck by a gale, and in the air he breathed he could feel a swiftly
growing heat. For a space he stood there, breathing quickly in the face
of a mighty peril. Where had Black Roger and the Broken Man gone? What
mad impulse could it be that dragged them still farther into the path
of death? Or had they struck aside from the trail? Was he alone in
danger?

As if in answer to the questions there came from far ahead of him a
loud cry. It was Black Roger's voice, and as he listened, it called
over and over again the Broken Man's name,

"Andre--Andre--Andre--"

Something in the cry held Carrigan. There was a note of terror in it, a
wild entreaty that was almost drowned in the trembling wind and the
moaning that was in the air. David was ready to turn back. He had
already approached too near to the red line of death, yet that cry