t it, very shortly. From the top of the opposite
bank he fired a shot or two, and drew for the first time a return from
the enemy. Then he broke off, and when he next gave hint of his
whereabouts, it was to hail us from the nearest point on the canyon rim.

"Quit your hide-out and pull for the mouth of the gorge. Quick! I'll be
there."

"What the hell's up now!" Piegan muttered. "Well, I guess we'll have t'
take a chance. If they don't wing us before we get across this bald
place, we'll be all right. Run like yuh was plumb scairt t' death,
Flood."

We sprinted like a pair of quarter-horses across the thirty yards of
bare ground that spread in front of the rock, a narrow enough space, to
be sure, but barren of cover for a jack-rabbit, much less two
decent-sized men. My heart was pumping double-quick when we threw
ourselves headlong in the welcome sage-brush--they had done their level
best to stop us, and some of those forty-four caliber humming-birds
buzzed their leaden monotone perilously close to our heads. That is one
kind of music for which I have a profound respect.

From there to the creek-channel we crawled on all fours, as MacRae had
done. Stooping, lest our heads furnish a target, we splashed along in
the shallow water till we reached the mouth of the canyon. There we
slipped carefully to higher ground. MacRae was scrambling and sliding
down from above, barely distinguishable against the bank. Far up the
gorge dense clouds of black smoke swooped down from the benchland.
Already the patch of brush in which lay the renegade Policemen was
hidden in the smudge, shut away from our sight. We hailed MacRae when he
reached the foot of the hill, and he came crashing through sage and
buck-brush and threw himself, panting, on the ground.

"The fire," he gasped, "is coming down the gorge. They're cut off at the
other end. They've got to come out here in a little while--or roast. The
smoke would choke a salamander, on top, right now. We can't miss them in
this narrow place, no matter how thick it gets. Look yonder!"

A wavering red line licked its way to the canyon-edge on the east side,
wiped out the grass, and died on the bald rim-rock. Away up the creek a
faint crackling sounded.

"Dry timber," Piegan muttered. "It'll get warm 'round here pretty
directly."

The smoke, blacker now, more dense, hot as a whiff from a baker's oven,
swooped down upon us in choking eddies. It blew out of the canyon-mouth
like a gust f