Judy’s mustang whirled, threw up its head and snorted, and the pony ridden by the rancher began to buck under the restraining grip on the bridle-rein and sundry jabs from the spur, while the mounts of the Overlanders showed signs of panic.
A moment more and every mustang in the party was sniffing the air and snorting. Bindloss, leaning forward in his saddle, gazing back over the ground that they had covered, saw that a curtain of bluish shade had been drawn over their late trail. The curtain was quivering, punctuated here and there by faint spurts of red.
Judy Hornby’s mustang uttered a whistling blast of fear, and reared on its hind legs.
“Fire!” cried the mountain girl. “They’ve set the grass on fire!”
“Ride!” yelled Joe Bindloss. “It’s coming fast!”
CHAPTER XXIII
RACING WITH DEATH
None knew better than the rancher and the mountain girl the peril that lay behind that waving, quivering blue haze. The only avenue open to them lay by way of the dark aisles between the pines, for the blue haze, as they quickly discovered, had crept up on either side as well as to the rear of them.
“Into the forest!” shouted Bindloss, giving his pony rein, while Judy held in her bucking mount until her companions got under way.
The Overland girls were too frightened to start, but their mustangs, taking matters into their own hands, lunged forward and were in amongst the pines a few seconds later, dodging here and there to avoid trees, until their riders were clinging with knees and hands to keep from being unseated.
A thin streak of yellow smoke wriggled overhead, followed by a crackling, hissing sound, and the wind whipping in the tree tops carried the smoke on ahead. The fire had overtaken them, had run up the trunks of the trees at the edge of the forest, and was leaping from tree to tree over the heads of the Overland Riders, while here and there to the rear great pines exploded with terrifying sounds.