“You’ll probably see me again afore this Henderson business is over, but it’s hard tellin’,” was Malemute’s parting prophecy. “Au revoir.”
“Au revoir,” the boys sang out the French “so long,” and started on to where the stag had fallen.
Late that evening, making camp at a point they judged somewhere within fifty miles of Mackenzie’s Landing, the smoke of the forest fire was so strong it made them cough. They had paddled a little way up a small creek for the night, thinking to make themselves more secure from a possible night attack from Henderson’s men, who seemed so determined they should not get to the mounted police.
“I’m afraid we’re in for it,” Dick shook his head concernedly.
“It sure feels as if we were close to a fire,” Sandy agreed dubiously.
“Well, we’ll need all the sleep we can get at any rate,” Dick concluded, as he rolled into his blankets, and Sandy prepared for the first watch.
CHAPTER IV
THROUGH THE FLAMES
That night Dick slept fitfully. The place where they had camped was in a deep coulee, unwooded except for a few clumps of red willow. Straight above them, at the top of an almost perpendicular wall of red shale and crumbling sandstone, was a dark fringe, which marked the beginning of a mighty forest of spruce and jack pine. Moaning in his sleep, Dick sat up and commenced rubbing his eyes. Then he paused to stare in open-mouthed wonder.
The coulee was full of smoke. It floated around them in a ever thickening cloud, while above, plainly visible in the glare of the conflagration, sweeping down from the north, he beheld a thick, dense column of smoke, which seemed to span the coulee like a black bridge.
Ten feet away, Sandy, on sentinel duty, coughed and dug at his eyes. In alarm, Dick threw aside his blankets and crawled hurriedly forward to consult with his chum.