Page:Vance--The trey o hearts.djvu/45

Rh but a minute sufficed: within its span a tongue of flame licked up, wrapped itself round the hempen cord, and ate it through. Immediately Alan kicked his feet free and crawled from the pyre.

As for his hands—Alan's hunting-knife was still in its sheath belted to the small of his back. Tearing at the belt with his hampered fingers, he contrived to shift it round within comparatively easy reach. Withdrawing and conveying the blade to his mouth, he gripped it between his teeth and severed the cords round his wrists.

Already the glare was silhouetting the trees not a hundred yards away. Before Alan could turn and run he saw the flames bridge fifty yards at a bound and set a dead pine blazing. And then he was pelting like a madman across the clearing. Presently the trail branched right and left; Alan darted to the left at a venture, and soon broke from the forest to the shore of a lake, within few hundred feet of the dam that choked its outlet—a substantial dam, well-banked and timbered, through whose spillway a heavy volume of water cascaded with a roar.

A glance showed Alan that his only way of escape was via the dam, and that there was a canoe at mid-lake bearing to the farther shore Judith Trine and the Indian. Suddenly Jacob turned his head sharply and dropped the paddle. The next instant a bullet