"Impossible," muttered the stockman; "the flames are spreading with the speed of a horse, and even now a huge wall of fire bars us from the prairie."
"Why did you not give us notice before?" I asked.
"I came to you the instant a torch was applied to the dry leaves and branches, but before I was twenty rods from the flames I could hardly have returned without danger of being burned."
"Well, gentlemen, what is to be done?" asked Murden; "shall we stay here and be singed like dead rabbits, or shall we push through the forest and endeavor to escape the ambush?"
"In either case I don't see but that our prospects of escape are hopeless," said Fred, quite calmly.
"Hark!" cried the stockman, starting to his feet; "do you not hear the flames?"
We all listened, and a noise like the roaring of the surf on a beach could be heard, but apparently at a distance.
"That does not sound encouraging, I confess," remarked Fred; "but I think that we can yet circumvent the devils."
"How?" cried Murden, eagerly.
"Will you be governed by me, for a few hours?" Fred asked.