Page:Hendryx--Connie Morgan with the Mounted.djvu/162

144 on the ridge of a high shoulder. On three sides of him rolled a vast panorama of the hills. Jagged, rocky peaks reared their heads like icebergs above the timbered ridges that stretched in endless confusion, like the waves of a wind-tossed sea.

Connie's attention riveted upon a rising column of smoke, several miles to the southward. "A signal fire!" he cried, and then his brows drew together in a frown as a sudden shift in the wind whipped a dense cloud of heavy smoke around the spur of a high butte. "The timber's on fire!" And the next moment, along the lower edge of the smoke cloud, he caught the red glare of the high-flung flames! "The wind's changed! It's coming this way!" he cried. He was conscious of a low, dull roar. It was the angry voice of the fire-fiend! Instantly he cast about for a place of safety. Above him, a quarter of a mile away, a deep rock coulee reached upward, high above the timber-line. He turned and ran. Then suddenly he stopped in his tracks. Before his eyes rose the vision of a little girl with golden hair, and a sturdy, blue-eyed little boy, and the woman who had treated him kindly though she knew he was a police officer. Once more he glanced toward the fire, nearer, now, by