wn the tree aisles. Birds shot past, at first
by ones and twos, later in flocks. A deer that must have lain perdu to
let them pass bounded across the ridge, his head high, his nostrils
wide. The squirrels ran chattering down the trees, up others, leaped
across the gaps, working always farther and farther to the north. The
cool breeze carried with it puffs of hot air. Finally in distant
openings could be discerned little busy, flickering flames. All at once
the thought gripped Bob hard: the might of the fire was about to test
the quality of his work!

"There she comes!" gasped Charley Morton. "My Lord, how she's run
to-day! We got to close the line to that stone dike."

By one of the lightning transitions of motive with which these
activities seemed to abound, the affair had become a very deadly earnest
sort of race. It was simple. If the men could touch the dike before the
fire, they won.

The realization of this electrified even the weary spirits of the
fire-fighters. They redoubled their efforts. The hoes, mattocks and axes
rose and fell feverishly. Mrs. Morton, the perspiration matting her
beautiful and shining hair across her forehead, laboured with the best.
The fire, having gained the upward-rising slope, came at them with the
speed of an enemy charging. Soon they were fairly choked by the dense
clouds of smoke, fairly scorched by the waves of heat. Sweat poured from
them in streams. Bob utterly forgot his wounded hand.

And then, when they were within a scant fifty yards of the dike which
was intended to be their right wing, the flames sprang with a roar to
new life. Up the slope they galloped, whirled around the end of the fire
line, and began eagerly to lick up the tarweed and needles of the
ridge-top.

Bob and Elliott uttered a simultaneous cry of dismay. The victory had
seemed fairly in their grasp. Now all chance of it was snatched away.

"Poor guess," said Charley Morton. The men, without other comment,
shouldered their implements and set off on a dog-trot after their
leader. The ranger merely fell back to the next natural barrier.

"Now, let's see if we can't hold her, boys," said he.

Twice again that day were these scenes reenacted. The same result
obtained. Each time it seemed to Bob that he could do no more. His hand
felt as big as a pillow, and his whole arm and shoulder ached. Besides
this he was tired out. Amy had been cut off from them by the fire. In
two days they had had but an hour's sl