"The horses are beginning to wake up too," said Jim. "They don't like it."
"That's where they show their good sense," I observed.
They certainly were becoming nervous. At first they regarded the fire with their heads up and ears pricked forward. Then Piute began to stampede around the corral, snorting and plunging. I thought that he was going to rear over the fort.
"He must think that he is a circus horse," laughed Jim. "Whoa, my wild Arab!"
But the wild Arab was not be cajoled, and Jim had to strong arm him by the means of a rope. Then he stood trembling, crazy eyed and with flaming nostrils.
It was indeed a terrible sight as the flames swept down the whole mountain slope towards our isolated hill. The entire valley was illuminated with one brilliant glare of flame. However, the fire did not roll down in one solid wave, the pines stood too isolated for that.
But each pine rose in a single blaze with a swish, a crackle and a roar, but there were hundreds of them and it was a splendid but awful sight—a riot of fire and the flying embers were like stars in the smoke.
"We have only a few minutes now," suddenly announced Jim, "quick, get the saddles."
"What for?" I asked. "We surely can't ride through the fire."
"It's the very luck I was looking for," he exclaimed. "It's our chance to escape, don't you see?"