ong with us, Karen," he
said to his wife. He took down his rifle, and looked inquiringly at
Doctor Barnes. "Have you got an extra gun?" asked the latter. Jensen
nodded, finding the spare piece near at hand.

Very little more was said. They all walked out into the morning, when
the red ball of the sun was coming up above the misty valley.

"Go on ahead in the car," said Wid. "I'll bring my horse."

They met at Sim Gage's half-burned home. Sim himself hobbled out,
rifle under one arm and the little Airedale under the other, the latter
wriggling and barking in his delight. The purr of a good motor was
soon under them. In a few moments they were out of Sim Gage's lane and
along the highway as far as the point where the Tepee Creek trail
turned off into the mountains.

"Wait here, Doc," said Wid, "Sim and me want to have a look--we know
the track of that car that done the work down here."

But when they bent over the trail, they saw that it was different
from what it had been when they left it the night before! Wid cursed
aloud, and Sim Gage joined him heartily.

"It's wiped out," said Sim. "Some one's been over this trail since
last night. This car ain't got no busted tire."

"That may be the very man that came down and called me!" exclaimed
Doctor Barnes.

"I heard him when he went down the road," nodded Nels Jensen--"last
night. I'll bet that's the same car. I'll bet it come down out of the
mountains."

They passed on up the creek valley toward the Reserve far more rapidly
than the weaker car of Big Aleck had climbed the same grade the day
previous, but the main body of the forest lay three thousand feet above
the valley floor, and the ascent was so sharp that at times they were
obliged to stop in order to allow the engine to cool.

"What's that?" said Sim Gage after a time, when they had been on their
way perhaps an hour up the winding canon, and had paused for the time.
"Smoke? That ain't no camp fire--it's more."

They made one or two more curves of the road and then got confirmation.
A long, low blanket of smoke was drifting off down the valley to the
right, settling in a gray-blue cloud along the mountain side. The wind
was from left to right, so that the smoke carried free of the trail.

"She's a-fire, boys!" exclaimed Wid. "We better git out of here while
we can."

"We ain't a-going to do nothing of the sort," said a quiet voice. Wid
Gardner turned to look into the face of Sim Gage.