"You bet!" answered the Ranger. "You did well. And now you're holding Jack, are you? You needn't explain. I know all about him. Since that fire drove him out along with other animals, we'll hang on to him. The game warden spoke to me about him a long time ago."
"You fellows think you're mighty smart. Do I get my shoes, or not?" growled the beaver man.
"Not," answered the Ranger, cheerfully. "We'll wrap your feet up with a few handkerchiefs and let you ride this horse." He got down. "What's the matter? Burns? Bad leg? Say! These kids are some class on first-aid, aren't they! You're lucky. Did you thank them? Now you can ride nicely and the game warden will sure be glad to see you." Then he spoke to us. "I'm going over to my cabin, boys, where there's a telephone. Better come along and spend the night."
We hustled for our blanket-rolls. The beaver man gruntingly climbed aboard the Ranger's horse, and we all set out. The Ranger led the horse, and carried his rifle.
"Is the fire out?" asked Kit Carson.
"Not out, but it's under control. It'll burn itself out, where it's confined. I've left a squad to guard it and I'll telephone in to headquarters and report. But if it had got across this fire line and around those willows, we'd have been fighting it for a week."
"How did it start?"
"Somebody's camp-fire."
The trail we were making led through the timber and on, across a little creek and up the opposite slope. The sun was just setting as we came out beyond the timber, and made diagonally up a bare ridge. On top it looked like one end of that plateau we had crossed when we were trailing the gang and we had first seen the fire.
The Ranger had come up here because traveling was better and he could take a good look around. We halted, puffing, while he looked. Off to the west was the snowy range, and old Pilot Peak again, with the sun setting right beside him, in a crack. The range didn't seem far, but it seemed cold and bleak—and over it we were bound. Only, although now we had the message, we didn't have the other Scouts. If they were burned—oh, jiminy!