When noon came, and they stopped a little while to refresh themselves with some of the food carried along in Thad’s haversack, Jim announced that they must be more than half way to their destination.
Thad looked into the face of the guide frequently, wondering if Jim’s heart was beginning to fail him the closer he drew to the implacable giant who had uttered such ferocious threats against his new son-in-law; but the only thing he did notice was a smile of supreme confidence whenever Jim happened to put up his hand to touch the breast of his coat, about the place where an inner pocket would be. And from this Thad understood that the other had the fullest confidence that the message he was bearing to Lina’s father, the olive branch he meant to extend to Old Cale, was sure to work as she had intended it should.
It was about an hour and more, possibly two, after the noon halt, that Thad saw Jim come to a stop, and start to sniff the air suspiciously.
“What it it, Jim?” he asked, though he could give a pretty good guess even before the woods’ pilot uttered a word.
“I smells smoke, sure enuff, naow,” replied Jim.
“Then the wind’s changed, hasn’t it?” inquired Thad, bristling up, as a vision of more or less excitement to vary the monotony of this rather dreary tramp through the piney forest flashed before his mind.
“It sure hes, Thad; and I kinder guess afore a great while yeou might be havin’ thet wish o’ yeourn kim true; ’cause ther’s a fire sumwhar not far away right naow; which, with ther change o’ wind, is liable tew sweep daown on us like a whirlwind. Mebbe so be yeou mout see more’n yeou bargained fur, Thad!”
CHAPTER XXV.
CAUGHT IN THE FOREST FIRE.
“What’s to be done about it, Jim?” demanded the scoutmaster.