Margaret Golinda had ridden up to them, late on the first day, with coffee and food, and they had sent the Scout far down the trail to meet her.
Dr. Mayfield came on the afternoon of the second day, tired and dauntless and full of optimism: he admitted that it was a nasty fire—the way the wind kept veering about—harder to fight than as if it had been concentrated; too bad those deer hunters had failed them, but they were holding their own in every section; a good, stiff fight (the doctor clearly liked a good, stiff fight whether it was to save a man or a forest of shining madroña) but they were going to win.
His own crowd from the camp had come across nobly and the women were working like beavers to keep them fed; the boys and Ginger were constantly in the saddle.
“But—look here, Dean—you ought to have somebody with you beside your boy. Mateo’s almost too far away in case of anything sudden, I’ve told you how fast it travels when it starts in the bottom of a cañon; it’s as if it were sucked through a funnel—simply races up—up, roaring.”
“I think I can swing it,” said Dean Wolcott. He looked uncommonly fit and eager and fresh.
“It means working like two men instead of one,” said the doctor, doubtfully.
“Well, can’t you figure the satisfaction it is to me to be able—at last—to work like two men?” He swung his arms and pulled in a deep contented breath. “I’m enormously happy, Doctor. Please don’t give me a thought.”
The doctor gave him a great many thoughts and they were singularly proud and pleasant ones. He stayed an hour with them so that his Ted might have a little rest, tethered down the trail by Snort and Mabel with his saddle and bridle off, but he himself did not require any rest, apparently, for he used a shovel and a hatchet and swung a sack all the time he was with them.
They allowed themselves more sleep that night, and at dawn Mateo Golinda decided to leave them. “I think you will not have more trouble,” he said in his careful English, warmed still with accent and intonation. “I go home for a day; I return to-morrow to make sure all is finished.”
The Scout sat up and rubbed his eyes. He was intensely sleepy and very tired but a little loath to have the adventure ended. He made a tour of inspection while Dean Wolcott heated their coffee, and came importantly back to report that everything was quiet—a sullen smoldering here and there in the charred blackness, that was all.