In that poignant cry Slone uttered his realization of the strange fate that had waited for the inevitable race between Wildfire and the King; he uttered his despairing love for Lucy, and his acceptance of death for her and himself. No horse could outrun wind-driven fire in a dry pine forest. Slone had no hope of that. How perfectly fate and time and place and horses, himself and his sweetheart, had met! Slone damned Joel Creech's insane soul to everlasting torment. To think—to think his idiotic and wild threat had come true—and come true with a gale in the pine-tops! Slone grew old at the thought, and the fact seemed to be a dream. But the dry, pine-scented air made breathing hard; the gray racer, carrying that slender, half-naked form, white in the forest shade, lengthened into his fleet and beautiful stride; the motion of Wildfire, so easy, so smooth, so swift, and the fierce reach of his head shooting forward—all these proved that it was no dream.
Tense questions pierced the dark chaos of Slone's mind—what could he do? Run the King down! Make 'him kill Lucy! Save her from horrible death by fire!
The red horse had not gained a yard on the gray. Slone, keen to judge distance, saw this, and for the first time he doubted Wildfire's power to ran down the King. Not with such a lead! It was hopeless—so hopeless—
He turned to look back. He saw no fire, no smoke—only the dark trunks, and the massed green foliage in violent agitation against the blue sky. That revived a faint hope. If he could get a few miles ahead, before the fire began to leap across the pine-crests, then it might be possible to run out of the forest if it were not wide.
Then a stronger hope grew. It seemed that foot by foot Wildfire was gaining on the King. Slone studied the level forest floor sliding toward him. He lost his hope—then regained it again, and then he spurred the horse. Wildfire hated that as he hated Slone. But apparently he did not quicken his strides. And Slone could not tell if he lengthened them. He was not running near his limit but, after the nature of such a horse, left to choose his gait, running slowly, but rising toward his swiftest and fiercest.
Slone's rider's blood never thrilled to that race, for his blood had curdled. The sickness within rose to his mind. And that flashed up whenever he dared to look forward at Lucy's white form. Slone could not bear this sight; it almost made him reel, yet he was driven to look. He saw that the King carried no saddle, so with Lucy on him he was light. He ought to run all day with only that weight. Wildfire carried a heavy saddle, a pack, a water bag, and a rifle. Slone untied the pack and let it drop. He almost threw aside the water-bag, but something withheld his hand, and also he kept his rifle. What were a few more pounds to this desert stallion in his last run? Slone knew it was Wildfire's greatest and last race.
Suddenly Slone's ears rang with a terrible on-coming roar. For an instant the unknown sound stiffened him, robbed him of strength. Only the horn of the saddle, hooking into him, held him on. Then the years of his desert life answered to a call more than human.
He had to race against fire. He must beat the flame to the girl he loved. There were miles of dry forest, like powder. Fire backed by a heavy gale could rage through dry pine faster than any horse could run. He might fail to save Lucy. Fate had given him a bitter ride. But he swore a grim oath that he would beat the flame. The intense and abnormal rider's passion in him, like Bostil's, dammed up, but never fully controlled, burst within him, and suddenly he awoke to a wild and terrible violence of heart and soul. He had accepted death; he had no fear. All that he wanted to do, the last thing he wanted to do, was to ride down the King and kill Lucy mercifully. How he would have gloried to burn there in the forest, and for a million years in the dark beyond, to save the girl!
He goaded the horse. Then he looked back.
Through the aisles of the forest he saw a strange, streaky, murky something moving, alive, shifting up and down, never an instant the same. It must have been the wind—the heat before the fire. He seemed to see through it, but there was nothing beyond, only opaque, dim, mustering clouds. Hot puffs shot forward into his face. His eyes smarted and stung. His ears hurt and were growing deaf. The tumult was the rear of avalanches, of maelstroms, of rushing seas, of the wreck of the uplands and the ruin of the earth. It grew to be so great a roar that he no longer heard. There was only silence.