But other eyes, other brains were alive to all these things, eyes and
minds trained by a knowledge which only that mountain world could
teach. To them the significance was all absorbing. To them this new
terror was a thousandfold more appalling than all other storm and
tempest. With the forest afire there was safety for neither human nor
beast. With that forest afire flight was well-nigh impossible. With
that forest afire to save any living creature would be well-nigh a
miracle, and miracles had no place in their thoughts.

Yet those eyes, so watchful, remained unchanged. Those straining
brains only strained the harder. Those eager hearts knew no flinching
from their purpose, and if they quailed it was merely at the natural
dread for those whom they were seeking to succor.

Even in face of the added peril their purpose remained. The heavens
might roar their thunders, the lightnings might blind their staring
eyes, the howling gale might strew their path with every obstruction,
nothing could change them, nothing could stop them but death itself.

So with horses a-lather they swept along. Their blood-stained spurs
told their tale of invincible determination. These two men no longer
sat in their saddles, they were leaning far out of them over their
racing horses' necks, urging them and easing them by every trick in a
horseman's understanding. They were making a trail which soon they
knew would be a path of fire. They knew that with every stride of the
stalwart creatures under them they were possibly cutting off the last
hope of a retreat to safety. They knew, none better, that once amidst
that furnace which lay directly ahead it was something worse than an
even chance of life.

Buck wiped the dripping sweat out of his eyes that he might get a
clearer view. The blaze of lightning was of no use to him. It only
helped to make obscure that which the earthly fires were struggling to
reveal. The Padre's horse was abreast of his saddle. The sturdy brute
was leaving Caesar to make the pace while she doggedly pursued.

"We'll make it yet!" shouted Buck, over his shoulder, amidst the roar
of thunder.

The Padre made no attempt at response. He deemed it useless.

Buck slashed Caesar's flanks with ruthless force.

The blazing farm was just ahead, as was also the roaring fire of the
forest. It was the latter on which both men were concentrating their
attention. For the moment its path lay eastward, away to the right of
the