The fire might be of incendiary origin, or it might have started from the smoldering coals he himself had carelessly left in the hearth. Of one fact only was he certain. He had found the girl in the cabin. What stress of circumstance had induced her to enter the place, or had kept her there with the walls blazing about her? He could not guess. But if she actually found her way back intentionally, after traveling miles of dark, unblazed forest, her skill in woodcraft surpassed the skill of every woman and almost any man he had ever met.
With troubled and gloomy face, he once more took up the trail of the small footprints. The girl had struck off towards the brook this time, but whether she really knew where she was going, or was fleeing aimlessly, he could not say. As he pushed after her he discovered that continuous use had nearly exhausted his flash-lamp battery. There was still some current left, but from now on he would have to use his light sparingly. He hastened on, determined to end the pursuit as quickly as possible.
He was weaving his way through the icy wattles of a juniper clump, when, in the stillness of the night, shrill and plaintive, he heard the whinnying cry of a horse. For an instant his heart seemed to check a beat, and then he remembered Susy. He had left the pony in the gully, a few hundred yards south of the clearing. The tracks of the girl ran that direction, and the breeze was from the north. Susy must have discovered that somebody was approaching. She was a friendly little beast, and no doubt she had begun to feel lonesome and neglected in the dismal forest. It must have been Susy.
Dexter had halted for a moment to listen. But the cry was not repeated. A faint glow of distant fire still shimmered before him, seeping through the woods like twilight, mottling the coverts with strange, ghostly shadows. His straining senses caught no sound or stir of life. He was starting forward again, but as he bent to pass under a drooping bough, some alert faculty within him prompted him with sharp warning to look behind.
He was conscious of no actual noise; not even the tiny crack of a twig: but like most men who live in constant danger his nerves were as sensitive as a seismograph to any slight movement near him. Turning, he was aware of a muffled shape that had stepped softly from the dark thicket behind him. At the same instant a living weight pressed against his back, he felt the swift, circling contact of arms closing about his waist, and a pair of steely cold hands gripped upon his wrists. As Dexter lurched about to face his unknown antagonist, the night silence was broken sharply by the cry of a woman's voice, a crashing in the underbrush, and then the muffled beat of a horse's hoofs galloping along the winterbound brook.
CHAPTER VII
THE HUNTED WOMAN
From the sudden, startling sounds in the direction of the brook, the corporal guessed that the hunted woman had stolen and mounted his horse, and the spirited Susy was bolting through the woods with her unacquainted rider. The intelligence reached him subconsciously; he had no time for actual speculation. The active part of his mind was fully preoccupied just then, as he found himself struggling in the dark with an unidentified someone who had crept upon him from behind and seized him in a crushing embrace.
A second before he was confidently ranging on the trail of the fleeing woman, believing himself the only man existent in that vast area of desolate forest. And without forewarning, he suddenly discovered himself in the grip of a powerful assailant. He did not stop to ask questions.
His arms were pinioned at his sides, and iron muscles were closing tight about his ribs. Instinctively he knew he was no match for the burly strength that held him, but he had wicked recourse in a trick that it behooves all light men to learn. With a deep breath he filled his lungs full, and then as suddenly let go and shrank to his least possible dimension. For an instant he gained the needed laxness, and his arms slipped free.