Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/245

Rh extenuating circumstance, of course. What is it, Carruthers?"

He wheeled as the fire-ranger spoke at his elbow.

"The hotel-man—what's his name? Grange? Well, Grange reckons he can get a half-dozen together. And there's you—and myself—and these two?"

He spoke hurriedly, putting a half-question into the words. Dick saw refusal on both faces, and a little smile ran into his eyes. He liked arranging matters so that men should force themselves to do the thing they disliked.

"Mr. Warriner won't go. There might be some danger. I don't know if the same reason applies to this other gentleman"

"That settled those two," said Carruthers, a few minutes later. "You have rather brutal methods, you know, and the boy looks a bit delicate for the work. But we'll want everyone we can get. I'm dead afraid Halliday will lose everything he has—and Plunkett may do the same. Here are Grange's haul—eight. That's better than he promised."

The smoke curled among the boles of the trees as the men rode South at a slinging gallop. It rose in the long tree-galleries like incense in some dark, still cathedral. In boggy places where the damp drew it low it lapped along the ground like the grey waves of a shoreless sea. On the rim of a rocky ridge where flames forked out of the billow below Carruthers reined up, glancing round with his reddened eyes.

"Is there any man can get us through by a short cut to Halliday's?" he asked. "We can't go down there now."

"I can." Dick pushed forward. "There's a possible trail through a coulée, and across a muskeg. But if any man falls out he may not get found again."

"That's so. Close up, gentlemen." Carruthers reined in behind Dick. "Kick her into it," he said, and with a thunder of hooves the little army swung to the right along the hilltop.

Slicker was riding a pony of Ducane's, and when the unstable muskeg came underfoot in the drifting smoke