Bob Hart. The red eyes in his blackened face were sunken and his coat
hung on him in crisped shreds. He looked down at the bodies lying side by
side. His face worked, but he made no verbal comment.

"We piled into a cave. Some of the boys couldn't stand it," Dave
explained.

Bob's gaze took in his friend. The upper half of his body was almost
naked. Both face and torso were raw with angry burns. Eyebrows had
disappeared and eyes were so swollen as to be almost closed. He was
gaunt, ragged, unshaven, and bleeding. Shorty, too, appeared to have gone
through the wars.

"You boys oughtta have the doc see you," Hart said gently. "He's down at
camp now. One of Em's men had an arm busted by a limb of a tree fallin'
on him. I've got a coupla casualties in my gang. Two or three of 'em
runnin' a high fever. Looks like they may have pneumonia, doc says. Lungs
all inflamed from swallowin' smoke.... You take my hawss and ride down to
camp, Dave. I'll stick around here till the old man sends a relief."

"No, you go down and report to him, Bob. If Crawford has any fresh men
I'd like mine relieved. They've been on steady for 'most two days and
nights. Four or five can hold the fire here. All they need do is watch
it."

Hart did not argue. He knew how Dave stuck to a thing like a terrier
to a rat. He would not leave the ground till orders came from Emerson
Crawford.

"Lemme go an' report," suggested Shorty. "I wanta get my bronc an' light
out pronto. Never can tell when Applegate might drap around an' ask
questions. Me, I'm due in the hills."

"All right," agreed Bob. "See Crawford himself, Shorty."

The outlaw pulled himself to the saddle and cantered off.

"Best man in my gang," Dave said, following him with his eyes. "There to
a finish and never a whimper out of him. Dragged a man out of the fire
when he might have been hustling for his own skin."

"Shorty's game," admitted Hart. "Pity he went bad."

"Yes. He told me he didn't kill Harrigan."

"Reckon Dug did that. More like him."

Half an hour later the relief came. Hart, Dave, and the three
fire-fighters who had stayed to watch rode back to camp.

Crawford had lost his voice. He had already seen Hart since the fire had
subsided, so his greeting was to Sanders.

"Good work, son," he managed to whisper, a quaver in his throat. "I'd
rather we'd lost the whole works than to have had that happen to the
boys, a hundred times rather. I reckon it must 'a' been mighty bad