t now and keep going, Bud
Lee, if you don't want to do time in the jug."

Tommy Burkitt, staring back across the broken miles of mountain, canon,
and forest, his eyes frowning, was muttering:

"Look at that, Bud. What do you make of it?"

For a little Lee did not answer. He and Tommy and Hampton, standing
among the rocks, turned their eyes together toward the hills rimming in
the northern side of Blue Lake ranch.

"I make out," said Lee slowly, "that Trevors means business and that
Carson has got his work cut out for him this morning, Tommy."

For the thing which had caught the boy's eyes was a blaze on the ridge,
its flames leaping and ricking at the thinning darkness, its smoke a
black smudge on the horizon, staining the glow of the dawn. And
farther along the same ridge was a second blaze, smaller with distance,
but growing as it licked at the dry brush. Still farther a third.

"If that fire ever gets a good start," muttered Lee heavily, "it's
going to sweep the ranch. God knows where it will stop. And just how
Carson is going to fight fire with one hand and hold his stock with the
other, I don't know."

But even then he turned his eyes away from the ranch, sweeping the
ragged jumble of mountains about him. Judith was gone. Judith needed
him and he did not dare try to estimate the soreness of her need. What
did it matter that Carson and Tripp and the rest had their problems to
face back there? There was only one thing all of the wide world that
mattered. And did not even know where she was, north, south, east, or
west! Somewhere in these mountains, no doubt. But where, when a man
might ride a hundred miles this way or that and have no sign if he
passed within calling distance of her?

In his heart Bud Lee prayed, as he had prayed last night, asking God
that he might come to Judith. And it seemed to him, standing close to
God on the rocky heights, that his prayer had been heard and answered.
For, far off to the east, still farther in the solitude of the
mountains, rising from a rugged peak, a thin line of smoke rose into
the paling sky.

It might be that Judith was there. It might be that she was scores of
miles from the beckoning smoke. But Lee had asked a sign and there,
like a slender finger pointing to the brightening sky, was a sign.

He stooped swiftly for rifle and rope and packet of bacon.

"Where you goin', Bud?" asked Tommy.

"To Judith," answered Bud Lee gently.

For in his h