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and wondered why he had not asked for a drink. Then it came to him that he might have borrowed a horse, but remembered thickly after a long time the impassable dikes between him and camp.

"That's why I didn't," he said aloud.

By this time it was too late to go back for the drink. He did not care. The excitement and responsibility had drained from him suddenly, leaving him a hollow shell.

They dragged themselves up the dike.

"I'd give a dollar and a half for a drink of water!" said Pollock suddenly.

They stumbled and staggered on. A twig sufficed to trip them. Pollock muttered between set teeth, over and over again, his unvarying complaint: "I'd give a dollar and a half for a drink of water!"

Finally, with a flicker of vitality, Bob's sense of humour cleared for an instant.

"Not high enough," said he. "Make it two dollars, and maybe some angel will hand you out a glass."

"That's all right," returned Pollock resentfully, "but I bet there's some down in that hollow; and I'm going to see!"

"I wouldn't climb down there for a million drinks," said Bob; "I'll sit down and wait for you."

Pollock climbed down, found his water, drank. He filled the canteen and staggered back up the steep climb. "Here you be," said he.

Bob seized the canteen and drank deep. When he took breath, he said:

"Thank you, Jack. That was an awful climb back." "That's all right," nodded Jack shortly.

"Well, come on," said Bob.

"The hell!" muttered Jack, and fell over sound asleep. An hour later Bob felt himself being shaken violently. He stirred and advanced a little way toward the light, then dropped back like a plummet into the abysses of sleep.

435

Afterward he recalled a vague, half-conscious impression of being lifted on a horse. Possibly he managed to hang on; possibly he was held in the saddle that he never knew. The next thing he seemed conscious of was the flicker of a camp-fire, and the soft feel of blankets. It was night, but how it came to be so he could not imagine. He was very stiff and sore and burned, and his hand was very painful. He moved it, and discovered, to his vast surprise, that it was bound tightly. When this bit of surgery had been performed he could not have told.

He opened his eyes. Amy and Mrs. Morton were bending over cooking utensils. Five motionless forms reposed in blankets. Bob counted them carefully. After some moments it occurred to his dulled brain that the number sented his companions. Some one on horseback seemed repreto be arriving. A glitter of silver caught his eye. He recognized finally California John. Then he dozed off again. The sound of voices rumbled through the haze of his halfconsciousness.

"Fifty hours of steady fire-fighting with only an hour's sleep!" he caught Thorne's voice saying.

Bob took this statement into himself. He computed painfully over and over. He could not make the figures. He counted the hours one after the other. Finally he saw. "Fifty hours for all but Pollock and me," he said suddenly; "forty for us."

No one heard him. As a matter of fact, he had not spoken aloud; though he thought he had done so.

"We found the two of them curled up together," he next heard Thorne say. "Orde was coiled around a sharp root and didn't know it, and Pollock was on top of him. They were out in the full sun, and a procession of red ants was disappearing up Orde's pants leg and coming out at his collar. Fact!"

"They're a good lot," admitted California John. "Best unbroke lot I ever saw."

"We found Orde's finger broken and badly swelled. Heaven knows when he did it, but he never peeped. Morton says he noticed his hand done up in a handkerchief yesterday morning."

Bob dozed again. From time to time he caught fragments "Four fire-lines - think of it - only one oldtimer in the lot - I'm proud of my boys - ——" He came next to full consciousness to hear Thorne saying: "Mrs. Morton fought fire with the best of them. That's the ranger spirit I like when as of old the women and

children

"Don't praise me," broke in Mrs. Morton tartly. "I don't give a red cent for all your forests, and your pesky rangering. I've got no use for them. If Charley Morton would quit you and tend to his cattle, I'd be pleased. I didn't fight fire to help you, let me tell you."

"What did you do it for?" asked Thorne, evidently amused.

"I knew I couldn't get Charley Morton home and in bed and resting until that pesky fire was out; that's why!" shot back Mrs. Morton.

"Well, Mrs. Morton," said Thorne composedly, "if you're ever fixed so sass will help you out, you'll find it a very valuable quality."

Then Bob fell into a deep sleep.

O

VII

N RETURNING to headquarters, as Bob was naturally somewhat incapacitated for manual work, he

was given the fire patrol. This meant that every day he was required to ride to four several "lookouts" on the main ridge, from which points he could spy abroad carefully over vast stretches of mountainous country. One of these was near the meadow of the cold spring whence the three of them had first caught sight of the Granite Creek fire. Thence he turned sharp to the north along the ridge top. The trail led among great trees that dropped away to right and left on the slopes of the mountain. Through them he caught glimpses of the blue distance, or far-off glittering snow, or unexpected cañon depths. The riding was smooth, over undulating knolls. Every once in a while passing through a "puerto suelo," he looked on either side to tiny green meadows, from which streams were born. Occasionally he saw a deer, or more likely small bands of the wild mountain cattle that swung along before him, heads held high, eyes staring, nostrils expanded. Then Bob felt his pony's muscles stiffen beneath his thighs, and saw the animal's little ears prick first forward at the cattle, then back for his master's commands.

After three miles of this he came out on a broad plateau formed by the joining of his ridge with that of the Baldy range. Here Granite Creek itself rose, and the stream that flowed by the mill. It was a country of wild, park-like vistas between small pines, with a floor of granite and shale. Over it frowned the steeps of Baldy, with its massive domes, its sheer precipices, and its scant tree-growth cling

ing to its sides. Against the sky it looked very rugged, very old, very formidable; and the sky, behind its yellowed age, was inconceivably blue.

Sometimes Bob rode up into the pass. More often he tied his horse and took the steep rough trail afoot. The way was guarded by strange, distorted trees, and rocks carved into fantastic shapes. Some of them were piled high like temples. Others, round and squat, resembled the fat and obscene deities of Eastern religions. There were seals and elephants and crocodiles and allegorical monsters, some of them as tiny as the grotesque Japanese carvings, others as stupendous as Egypt. The trail led by them, among them, between them. At their feet clutched snowbush, ground juniper, the gnarled fingers of manzañita, like devotees. A foaming little stream crept and plunged over bare and splintered rocks. Twisted junipers and the dwarf pines of high elevations crouched like malignant gnomes amongst the boulders, or tossed their arms like witches on the crags. This bold and splintered range rose from the softness and mystery of the great pine woods on the lower ridge as a rock rises above cool water.

The pass itself was not over fifty feet wide. Either side of it like portals were the high peaks. It lay like the notch of a rifle sight between them. Once having gained the tiny platform, Bob would sit down and look abroad over the wonderful Sierra.

Never did he tire of this. At one eye-glance he could comprehend a summer's toilsome travel. To reach yonder snowy peak would consume the greater part of a week. Unlike the Swiss alps, which he had once visited, these mountains were not only high, but wide as well. They had the whole of blue space in which to lie. They were like the stars, for when Bob had convinced himself that his eye had settled on the farthest peak, then still farther, taking half-guessed iridescent form out of the blue, another shone.

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