The dog shook himself as much as to say,—
“I’m ready at a moment’s notice to guide you safely home.”
There was a broad belt of red light in the distant horizon and towards this Oscar attempted to lead his master, with many a bound and many a bark.
But Allan wouldn’t budge.
“Not in that direction, Oscar, old boy,” he said; “our road lies towards the setting, not the rising sun.”
“Bow, wow!” barked Oscar, as if reasoning with him, “bow, wow, wow, wow!”
There was something in the dog’s demeanour that set Allan a-thinking. Could the animal really be right and he wrong? He examined the belt of red light more carefully now. Was that the east? Was that indeed the crimson clad vanguard that heralds the coming day? Nay, it could not be, the red was a more lurid red, the light was a fitful light, and as he gazed he could distinctly make out a confused rolling of great clouds over it. Then all at once the truth flashed across his mind.
The forest was on fire!
How this happened the reader may at once be told: sparks from McBain’s camp fire had towards morning ignited the withered needles that had fallen from the pine-trees, the brushwood had caught, and next the underwood of the spruce-trees, and at the very moment that Allan was gazing skywards his friends were rushing headlong through the woods, pursued by the devouring element.
Would they ever meet Allan again?