of
Black Roger urged him on like the lash of a whip. He plunged ahead into
the chaos of smoke, no longer able to distinguish a trail under his
feet. Twice again in as many minutes he heard Black Roger's voice, and
ran straight toward it. The blood of the hunter rushed over all other
things in his veins. The man he wanted was ahead of him and the moment
had passed when danger or fear of death could drive him back. Where
Black Roger lived, he could live, and he gripped his club and ran
through the low brush that whipped in stinging lashes against his face
and hands.

He came to the foot of a ridge, and from the top of this he knew Black
Roger had called. It was a huge hog's-back, rising a hundred feet up
out of the forest, and when he reached the top of it, he was panting
for breath. It was as if he had come suddenly within the blast of a hot
furnace. North and east the forest lay under him, and only the smoke
obstructed his vision. But through this smoke he could make out a thing
that made him rub his eyes in a fierce desire to see more clearly. A
mile away, perhaps two, the conflagration seemed to be splitting itself
against the tip of a mighty wedge. He could hear the roar of it to the
right of him and to the left, but dead ahead there was only a moaning
whirlpool of fire-heated wind and smoke. And out of this, as he looked,
came again the cry,

"Andre--Andre--Andre!"

Again he stared north and south through the smoke-gloom. Mountains of
resinous clouds, black as ink, were swirling skyward along the two
sides of the giant wedge. Under that death-pall the flames were
sweeping through the spruce and cedar tops like race-horses, hidden
from his eyes. If they closed in there could be no escape; in fifteen
minutes they would inundate him, and it would take him half an hour to
reach the safety of the clearing.

His heart thumped against his ribs as he hurried down the ridge in the
direction of Black Roger's voice. The giant wedge of the forest was not
burning--yet, and Audemard was hurrying like mad toward the tip of that
wedge, crying out now and then the name of the Broken Man. And always
he kept ahead, until at last--a mile from the ridge--David came to the
edge of a wide stream and saw what it was that made the wedge of
forest. For under his eyes the stream split, and two arms of it widened
out, and along each shore of the two streams was a wide fire-clearing
made by the axes of Black Roger's people, who had foresee