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 green mountain-side between the fire and the top.

If the wind should rise, the blaze might run up the mountain to that point before he could explore the top and return, although it seemed unlikely that fire could find a foothold among the melancholy greenery of that slope. Again, he might need the horse to follow the trail, in case Don Geronimo's captors had crossed the summit and gone on. He did not believe this to be the case; they had struck for the mountain top with definite intention, perhaps associated with some tradition of sacrifice or vengeance, or celebration of victory such as they doubtless considered this to be over their persecutor, the mayordomo of San Fernando.

Leading the horse, Juan scrambled on, the beast lumbering after him in the peculiarly ungainly heaves and jumps by which a horse takes a steep. This was an uncomfortable proceeding at a man's heels, with only the length of the reins between. Juan pulled up after a little of it, considering what was to be done, blowing from the exertion, and the heat of the morning sun concentrated on the mountain-side.

And more than the heat of the sun. The fire had grown almost past belief in these few minutes. There was a pitchy blackness in the smoke close to the ground, and glimpses through it of fire that leaped like spume of breaking seas. The wind was beginning to stir, called up by the heat; it flattened the smoke against the mountain, and bent the points of flame down to catch the tops of those stolid,