“You take ’em what supplies you can from packhorse,” Toma ordered.
“Yes,” said Dick, “the rest we’ll have to leave here. Throw your saddle on the pack-horse, Toma, and lead him up where the other ponies are. Wait there for me.”
Sandy turned a white face in the direction of his chum.
“Are you really going to do it, Dick?” he quavered.
“Hate to,” answered the other, attempting to conceal the tremor in his voice. “But hurry on, Sandy. I’ll join you in just a moment.”
Determinedly he turned, one hand trembling above his holster and walked over to where the doomed pony lay.
CHAPTER IV
THE FIRE PATROL
A few hours before daybreak they had successfully circled the fire and had reached a sparsely wooded height of land. So tired and worn out were the three messengers, that as soon as they had picketed out their ponies, they crawled into their blankets without troubling to prepare something to eat. Dick had almost fallen asleep when he was startled by a most peculiar sound—a sound so unusual and different from anything that he had ever heard since coming to the northern wilderness, that he sat bolt upright, wondering if his senses had not suddenly deserted him.
The metallic thub, thub, thub grew louder. He sat staring in the darkness, bewildered, a little frightened, and yet very curious to know its cause. More than anything else, it sounded like a high-powered motor boat, such as he had often seen and heard near his own home on the Great Lakes, back in the United States. Yet it was not a motor boat. They were still forty miles from the Peace River, and no body of water of any extent lay between them and the river.
Then, suddenly, he had it. An airplane! His mouth curved in a smile of wonder and admiration. An airplane! What was it doing here? With an unearthly howl, he bounded to his feet and was soon shaking Sandy and Toma.