with nippers--not a break. Keep away from the free end,
Gage's, it's probably a live wire. You're right. That gang is back in
here again. But tell me, what's that?--Do you smell anything?"

Sim Gage nodded. "Smoke," said he.

As the light grew stronger so that the far slopes of the mountain were
visible they saw the proof. Smoke, a heavy, rolling blanket of smoke,
lay high over the farther summits.

"Damn their souls!" said Doctor Barnes fervently and tersely. "They've
set the forest afire again."

A half hour later they swung into the ranch yard. The call of "Halt!"
came, backed by a tousled head nestled against the stock of a
Springfield which protruded from a window.

"Advance, friend!" exclaimed the corporal when he got his countersign,
and a moment later met his Major in the dooryard. They were joined by
Wid Gardner, who rose from the place where he had sat, rifle across his
knees, most of the night crouched against the end of the cabin.

"We've got him in here," said the Sergeant, leading the way to the
barracks door.

"Got what?"

"The one we shot. He's deader'n hell, but I thought you might like to
look through his pockets."

Wid Gardner unemotionally accompanied them into the room of the
barracks where, on a couple of boards, between two carpenter's
trestles, lay a long figure covered with a blanket.

"Scout Gardner got him last night about nine o'clock, sir," said the
Sergeant; "out in the lane behind the gate. Called to him to halt, and
he didn't stop."

"He didn't have no chanct to halt," said Wid Gardner calmly. "I
hollered that to him after I had dropped him. He wasn't the one I was
after, neither."

"The rest of them got away," went on the Sergeant. "We heard the shot
when we was just coming down the road. We come on to the head of the
lane and heard brush breaking. They was trying to get to their car,
down a little further. They whirled and came back through us in the
car, and we shot into them, but I don't know if we got any of 'em, the
horses was pitching so. They went back up the trail, or maybe up on
the Reserve road--I dunno. We come on down here to get orders."

Doctor Barnes slipped back the blanket. There was revealed the thin,
aquiline face of a man dressed in rather dandified clothing. There
were rings on both hands, a rather showy but valuable stickpin in the
scarf. The hands were not those of a laboring man. At the bridge of
the nose a faint depression