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 He was growling now, with a savagery that Hugh had never seen
in him before. He turned to his master with a look that was to haunt
the man even in those wild moments following, in which he would
make his last effort to drive the flock on to safety,—an expression of
wistful and unutterable appeal. And then he raced away—just as on
a summer day he had sped when one of the lambs had been
menaced by Running Feet—into the deep thickets beyond.
A strange and tragic blankness came into Hugh’s face. The lips
seemed to waver, the firm set of the jaw weakened,—just for an
instant. Despair was upon him. Seemingly the forest had beaten him
down and broken him at last. Blow after blow, disaster upon
disaster, until the spirit broke beneath them.
“So you’ve deserted me, old Shep,” he said simply. “So you’re
fleeing to save yourself.”
For was he not taking the same path that Alice had taken,
heading for the deep canyon where perhaps the fire had not yet
crept and the pass was open? The blow went deep to Hugh. He was
down at last to the elements of life—with death, a stern reality, even
now stretching dreadful arms toward him—and it is not good in such
moments to have an ancient and beloved trust betrayed. The fight
was lost: no honor remained except to go down with the ship.
But Hugh hadn’t understood. A pin-prick through the air, Shep
had heard the crack of José’s rifle. This in itself would not have been
enough to call him from his post of duty with the flocks. But through
the air came even clearer messages: mysterious vibrations such as
only the lower creatures of the earth—closer to the heart of things
than their proud masters—could receive. No man may tell in what
language those messages were sent, by what impulse they came
tingling through the still forest to him, and by what law within
himself he made his answer. But it was always the way of the great
shepherd dog to hasten to the aid of those of his flock who were in
peril. Perhaps in his heart of hearts this slim, tall mistress of his—
one whose word must never be disobeyed—was also just one of his
wards, in whose service his life was merely a pawn. But in the secret
ways of the wilderness he knew of her distress, and had sped to give
help.
 CHAPTER XXVII
While José Mertos had been riding, Landy Fargo had been busy,
too. It wasn’t enough just to order things done, and later to learn of
their accomplishment. In the hand, more than the brain, lies the
gratification of vengeance; and Fargo didn’t intend to miss this
satisfaction. Riding swiftly, he had lighted the circle of fires in front
of the sheep flock.
Exultation was upon him when he saw the red, greedy flames
creeping into the trees. It was his long-awaited moment. By no
conceivable circumstances could the flock and its shepherd escape.
He had prepared for every emergency, blockaded every pass.
The blows that Hugh had dealt him were paid for at last. His
dog-pack been laid low, in a still, ugly, curious heap—but there
would be other silent ones before this night was done. And there
would be less of beauty in these still forms than in those of his slain
pets. Everything was square at last. His brutal lips leered and his
eyes burned.
When his last fire was ignited, he stopped for a moment of
exultation. The red terror was sweeping into the trees, faster than
he had ever dreamed. Even now his enemies were enclosed in a
prison of fiery walls from which they never could escape. “I’ve got
you,” he cried in triumph. “You thought you could trample on me and
get away with it, but I’ve shown you.” He lifted his powerful hand.
“I’ve crushed you—like that.”
His brutal fingers closed. His fiery eyes glowed with self-worship.
“With this hand,” he exulted, in half-insane rapture. “This is the hand
that crushed you—no one else’s. You thought you could stand
against it, but it’s smashed you at last.”
He waited a little while more, fascinated by the lightning advance
of the fire. The brush and trees were particularly heavy in this glade
—and the red tongues swept forward with startling rapidity. He
hadn’t much time to linger further. It was always best to play safe—
and take no chances on this demon of fire. Yet he stayed, thrilled
and fascinated by his handiwork.
All at once a crackle behind him caused him to glance quickly
over his shoulder. He saw to his terror that a little arm of the fire had
spread here, too. He whirled his horse, then with a savage oath
lashed down with his quirt.
Yet plenty of time remained, by riding swiftly, to save himself.
There was no need for fear. He would go straight to his home, and
from its windows he could watch the progress of the fire. Yet the
crackle behind him got on his nerves, and he struck his horse again.
And this second blow was a serious mistake. The horse was
already running at a swift pace down the narrow trail. There is a
limit to the speed a horse can run with safety in the Idaho
mountains, and that limit was already reached. Beyond that point
comes only panic and blind frenzy. The horse leaped forward to the
wildest pace it knew.
The sweat leaped from Fargo’s dark brow, and slowly his self-
mastery came back to him. There was no need of this wild flight. He
had plenty of time. He started to check the horse.
But at that instant the sinister forces of the wild—always lurking
in ambush for such as Fargo—saw their chance. And the forest-
demons do not need mighty weapons. Their agents are the Little
Things, the covert trivialities that few men notice. In this case the
resistless force that overwhelmed him was only a furry, half-blind
creature of the dust—a rodent such as ordinarily Fargo would press
his heel upon and crush.
The rodent had been enlarging his winter home, and he had dug
away some of the earth from under the trail. The horse was running
too wildly to be careful, his hoof broke through the little shelf of dirt,
and he tripped and hurled headlong.
To the rodent, the disaster meant further hours of toil—digging
tirelessly till his rooms were clean again. Through some incredible
chance—perhaps because the great god Manitou had saved him for
further work—the horse was uninjured, and soon regained his feet.
But Fargo was hurled to the earth as the horse fell, and he only
knew a great darkness that transcended and smothered him.
As if they were trying to restore his nervous forces for some
great ordeal, the forest gods granted him a full hour of peaceful,
restful slumber. But it was doubtful mercy. At the end of that hour
they laughed—a sound not greatly different from the crackle of a
great fire, and began to call him into consciousness.
First they brought evil dreams, and Fargo started and murmured
in his sleep, tossing a little on his bed of pine needles. His look of
triumph was gone from his brutal features now. Instead, there was a
curious drawing and strain—and for all the sudden heat of the early
night, cold drops on his brow. Still his eyes wouldn’t open. He fought
hard, and his quivering body rustled the dead leaves.
Curious streaks of light slashed before his eyeballs now—all
colors, and they filled him with horror. But slowly remembrance
returned to him. He had set the fire, and now it was time to ride
away. He mustn’t get caught in his own trap. He rallied all the
powers of his spirit and fought for consciousness.
And the forest-demons decided to grant it to him. It was not in
accord with their plans that he should lie insensible throughout all
the entertainment they had provided for him. So they not only
permitted him to waken, but as a final favor they bestowed upon
him a super-consciousness—a fine keying of every nerve and an
added sensitiveness to his flesh. It was their final beneficence, and
they gave it freely. Fargo opened his starting eyes.
His first thought was of flight, and therefore of his horse. But the
animal, knowing of old the fear of fire, had sped on down the trail.
Fargo was alone. He had to run for it, then, before it was too
late. . . . He sat up, shuddering.
It occurred to him then that the fall had bewildered him as to his
directions. At the first glance he beheld the fire, but it was in front of
him instead of behind where he had left it. It was curious to be so
turned around—and he looked over his shoulder, intending to mark
the best trail to safety. And then Landy Fargo’s throat convulsed and
his breath came out in a scream.
The fiery wall was behind him, too, leaping toward him with a
deadly and terrible ferocity. The trees flamed like great torches,
swayed and fell; the brush was a wall of fire. The conflagration had
made a great half circle, just as he had planned, converging to the
left of him.
But to his right the fiery barrier was nearest of all. He didn’t have
to turn to know that. Its crackle was just in his ear. And then he
leaped to his feet with a wild, blasphemous cry.
A little peninsula of fire had crept out from the burning brush to
his right, and had paused—in grim speculation—beside something
hard and strong that it found resting in the pine needles. It was
Fargo’s hand—the hand in which he had exulted such a little time
before, and which had set the flame. As if in gratitude, the red
tongue licked at its brown skin.
Full knowledge came to Fargo then. All about him raged the fire,
pressing ever closer. He was helpless—powerless to aid himself as
the Shropshire lamb that he had thrown, so many weeks ago,
among his hounds. His own handiwork had turned against him, and
the vengeance of the wilderness was complete.
 CHAPTER XXVIII
The face before her seemed only part of her dark dreams as Alice
wakened from her unconsciousness. She hoped in an instant to
waken into the world of reality she had always known, not this abyss
with its red glare and creeping tongues of flame. She couldn’t
understand why her arms felt so numb and why they didn’t answer
the command of her nerves.
No moment of Alice’s life had ever been more fearful, more
fraught with despair, than that in which her full consciousness
returned to her. The fire’s glow was more lurid and terrifying than
ever. The flame itself was nearer: already it had crept almost to the
bottom of the glen. The way was still open, but a few moments
would see it closed. Yet all these things were apart from her and
infinitely remote. The only reality in her life, now that her dreams
were done, was the intent face of her captor.
The red radiance was upon it, and all semblance of humanity
seemed gone. Rather it seemed the face of some dreadful inmate of
an Inferno. The glow was in his dark eyes too: they were too close
to hers for her to mistake this fact. They smouldered, like the dead
trees where the flame had swept. Her throat convulsed, and a high,
far-carrying, piercing scream shuddered out above the roar of the
fire.
But it was cut off as from beneath a blade. She had summoned
all the strength of her will and spirit. After all, it was only wasted
strength to scream. There were none to hear her in these fire-swept
forests. When the pack of hounds had been about her, she had still
retained a dim and flickering hope that Hugh would come to her aid,
but she had no such hope now. She knew that stern, unbending
man who watched the sheep. All her tears, all her prayers could
never move him: he would linger, still at his post, till the insatiable
tongues of fire licked at his breast. She was only the woman, but
Hugh watched the sheep! Besides, the thing to do was to show this
dark man before her that even if this was the moment of her death
she would show no fear.
And this was no easy thing. Only because she was of the
mountains, because the spirit that dwells in the forest, the rugged
places, the wilderness primeval dwelt also in her, was she able to
effect it at all.
“Don’t be afraid,” the man was saying. “You ain’t goin’ to be hurt.
I’m goin’ to let you go in plenty of time. In the first place, I’ve got to
get out the same way myself.”
She could believe this, at least. She saw that he kept close watch
of the fire as it crept down toward the floor of the canyon.
Her eyes looked straight into his. Yet the fear crept at her heart—
for if indeed he intended to let her go, none but the most dreadful
reason occurred to her why she should be tied. And in truth, the
spirit of Landy Fargo was far distant now. José knew perfectly that
before she could reach a ’phone and men be secured to battle at this
last stand against the fire, the hungry little tongues would have
already encompassed the canyon. He only knew that he was
shivering strangely, and that he was not yet ready to let her go.
“Untie my hands,” she commanded.
“I will—quick enough. I just thought we’d talk a while first. It
ain’t often I get to talk to a pretty girl like you——”
There in the path of the advancing flame the words were
ineffably strange and terrible to the girl,—like some demoniac
torture of a shadow world. “And you’re not going to have a chance
now,” she told him clearly. “If you want to leave me here in the track
of the fire, it’s in your power to do it—but it won’t make me bend to
you, or plead with you, or treat you any different than I’ve ever
treated you.”
The man stiffened. She saw the gleam of his teeth through his
thin lips. “Don’t be too sure. I was told to let you go, but nothin’s
goin’ to happen to me if I don’t. Your position ain’t what it used to
be, Alice, and maybe I’m a different kind of man than you’re used
to. I come from a different race. And maybe you’d better try to be a
little more polite.”
“And I can only tell you this,” she went on as if she had not
heard. “If you do leave me here, if you put one indignity to me
above what you’ve already put by tying me up and making me listen
to your talk, you’ll pay for it. I’m just as sure of that as I am that I’m
alive.”
And the man might have listened in vain for any waver, any note
of doubt in her tone. She spoke as if in infallible prophecy.
“Who’s goin’ to do it?” the man demanded. “Who’s goin’ to find
out?”
“It will be found out. You’ll pay, whether I live or not. It seems—
almost as if vengeance is coming to you soon—right away. I can’t
tell you how I know. I only tell you to let me go.
“You’re from the desert, José, and not the mountains, and maybe
the desert lets debts go unpaid,” she went on, in a clear free tone of
inspiration. “But I know these forests. It seems to me I know them
now—better than I ever did before. One more insult—and I tell you
you’ll pay.”
But José laughed. Just a little, harsh note of scorn fell from his
lips. He was a mountain man, but in his passion and frenzy his
wilderness knowledge had deserted him. He did not heed her words.
And he bent to press his lips to hers.
And at that instant the thicket behind them parted as a terrible
avenger leaped through. It was not his first leap in vengeance. Many
times, in his years of service, he had sprung with magnificent
ferocity at the throat of a wolf that menaced the white sheep in his
care. But never before had he sprung so true, with such shattering
power and dreadful fury. White fangs that could carry a lamb as
tenderly as the arms of a shepherdess flashed in the firelight.
Just as she had said, the wilderness had spoken. One of the
guardians of the flock had swept to her aid. Because he was in
defense of his own, obeying the laws of his inmost being, his blow
had the might not only of the wilderness but of that high power that
has waged war with the wilderness, tamed its passions, subjugated
its peoples. No man may say if love for this tall shepherdess was a
factor too. Without its impulse, the lesser creatures do not often
unleash their fury against man. Shep the dog had come because it
was his duty and his destiny, and he sprang like a tigress through
the air.
The great shepherd dog struck like a wolf, aiming straight for the
throat. José had no time to ward off the blow. His back was to the
thicket. He didn’t even see it come. Gleaming fangs tore once at his
dark flesh.
Then for an instant there was only the red fire and the red sky,
with the wilderness bathed in their glow between. The dog had
dropped silently to his four feet and was crouched, waiting to see if
another blow were needed. The girl’s face seemed bereft of all life.
And that which had been a man was only a huddled heap in the pine
needles, dark and strange and impotent as the dust. Red fire and
red sky, and now a scarlet fountain, playing softly with ever
decreasing impulses, on the parched earth.
Shep had avenged the insult. And in paying the debt the pair of
hands that might have untied the bonds that held Alice in the path
of the fire were stilled.
 CHAPTER XXIX
Almost in a breath Shep’s ferocity passed away. He eyed the still
form for a sign of life, but quickly the fierce yellow lights died from
his eyes. The avenger, the remorseless slayer was gone, and just the
shepherd, rare comrade and fellow guardian of the flocks, remained.
His tail wagged in friendship, the stiff hairs began to lie down at the
animal’s shoulders. And he looked up in inarticulate appeal to the
girl’s face.
“It’s no use, old boy,” the girl told him. “I’m tied fast and I can’t
go with you. And—yes—the fire is coming.”
She told the truth. It had still a long way to go before it
encompassed the floor of the draw, but it was steadily, remorselessly
drawing nearer. The dog whined softly.
The girl shook her head. “I can’t go, old boy,” she repeated.
“We’re lost—you and I and your master, too. You’ve helped us all you
can.”
The animal seemed to understand. A great, brooding sorrow
came into his intelligent eyes. Here was the third of them that had
given his all for the sheep, one who had stayed for his work when
his swift legs and sure instincts could have saved him from the fire;
and when all is said and done, mostly for the same reason that Hugh
had stayed with his sheep,—because it was the inner law of the
breed from which he sprung. He was the shepherd dog, and he had
fulfilled his obligation even to the death. Many of his breed before
him had done as much. Many would come after—humble, unlauded
—and obey to the inevitable end the same laws. The high schemes
of the Universe were dimly before her eyes.
The dog barked again, then encircled the tree and licked softly at
her hands. It occurred to the girl that she might try to make her
position plain to the dog, urging him to bring his master to her aid.
Yet she couldn’t gesture with her pinioned arms, and the
understanding of Shep did not go out to words alone. She couldn’t
write a note to fasten to the dog’s collar. “Help me, Shep,” she
pleaded. “Go and get help.” The dog whined again, and she felt his
warm tongue at her palm. “Can you hear me, Shep? Can’t you
understand?”
As if in obedience, the dog turned and sped away. But in this last
fearful hour she could not make herself accept even this shadow of a
hope. Besides, Hugh was probably already dead or hemmed in by
the two converging crescents of fire. She found herself wishing that
the dog had stayed. He would be company for her in that last awful
moment just before the shadow would drop down for good and all.
She found herself dreaming that if he had only stayed, perhaps his
kindly fangs would play—just one little time—at her throat, saving
her from the final agony. He had always understood so well: perhaps
he would have helped her cheat those stealing tongues of red that
ever crept nearer. She couldn’t reach the pistol at her waist to cheat
them herself. At least, she might have partaken of Shep’s own great
spirit of strength.
She was alone and afraid at the dark frontier of death. There was
no help, no mercy from the flames: the shadows hovered close. She
wished she had stayed with Hugh. Death and its agony would not
seem so fearful then, in the shelter of his arms. Now his kiss was
cold upon her lips; but with their love to sustain them they could
have faced bravely their remorseless doom. Smoke drifted around
her. Most of it was carried up and away, yet perhaps it would bring
merciful unconsciousness before the flames should creep up to her.

Running at top speed, Shep circled around the flock to Hugh’s

side. The man was standing up to receive him. He had seen his
speeding form a long way off through the dim clouds of smoke: the
only creature that moved in the whole breadth of the forest. The
sheep themselves were making no further effort to flee from the
flames. Far or near, the wall had encircled them; and they stood as if
stricken dead, heads close to the ground.
 “Great God, Shep!” the man cried. “Have you come back to see it
through with me?”
And a light that had no kinship with the dreadful glare of the fire
flashed to the man’s face. Shep was returning to his flocks. He had
kept faith, after all. He was only a dog, yet to Hugh his fidelity was a
clear, bright shaft of light in an impenetrable darkness. No scales of
earth could measure the difference that it made to him.
Yet Shep did not come to nestle in his strong arms. Memories
were flashing over him, and he remembered a morning, months ago,
when one of his wards had been in danger and he himself had been
powerless to save. A lamb had fallen into the torrent, and his master
had gone quickly to his aid. When he was within a few feet of Hugh
he paused, barking, then ran a little way back.
“What is it, Shep?” the man asked. “What do you want me to
do?”
The dog barked louder, running forward again and pausing to see
if his master followed. Hugh gazed at him with widening eyes. At
first it did not even occur to him that Alice was in distress. He
supposed that she had fled to safety long since. Yet the dog was
frenzied in his eagerness, just as in times past when some beast of
prey had menaced one of the sheep. And Hugh remembered that
never once had the dog urged him forward without cause.
“What is it, old man?” he cried. “There’s no way out. Let’s stay
with the sheep—and see it through.”
But still the animal entreated. The fire raged and roared, burning
slowly on the descents, leaping with incredible fury as it mounted
the ridges, advancing steadily down the floor of the valley. East,
west, south and north,—everywhere a wall of flame. There was no
way out. Yet he could not doubt the urgency of this appeal. And all
at once the instinct came to answer it.
Perhaps it was because of his abiding faith in the animal’s
intelligence, perhaps just that in this final hour he knew that any
miracle might come to pass. He sprang up, and he didn’t try to keep
up with the dog at a walking pace. He ran from the first step.
 The dead logs across the trail, the hills and steeps, the narrow
passes between the walls of brush did not check his pace at all. The
air surged into his lungs in great sobs, his muscles ached and
burned as if the flames had already reached them. He knew—by
token of a clear voice within himself—that he was running for a life—
one that was very dear to him and must be saved at all cost.

Her arms still pinioned, Alice sat waiting for the end. It was hard
to be brave in the ever-nearing presence of the flames. If there had
been a cheering word from one she loved, one touch of a friendly
hand, the moments would not seem so terrible and long. But she
was helpless and alone, and all hope of aid was gone.
The way out of the fire trap was irremediably closed. True, there
was a territory of large extent behind her not yet burned over, and
she knew that if Hugh and his flock still lived they were in that
space. In all directions raged the fire, and now the flames had
stretched their terrible barrier clear across the little canyon in which
she was a prisoner. Even if by some miracle her arms should be
freed she could not escape. No human being could pass that flaming
wall in front and yet live. Because she was in the deepest part of the
canyon, its shadowed mouth where it met the broader canyon of
Silver Creek, the fire had not yet burned down to her, but by no
thousandth chance could this last little space of forest be spared. A
few moments or many: the issue was unmistakable in the end. If the
fire continued its present slow advance, perhaps the fevered cycle of
her blood might be repeated many times; but at any instant a falling
pine top from the flaming forest above might catch the tree against
which she was bound and bring the end. There was only one thing
left to pray for, now. There was still the fond wish that by some
miracle the passing might come swiftly, that her soul might wing its
way swift and free, not struggling from a pain-racked body, out of
this dreadful land of glaring sky and glaring fire. Perhaps the out trail
might be level and easy, after all.
 Her thoughts no longer held quite true. Strange fancies swept
her; and back of them was the clear, rational, unconfused voice of
hope that perhaps these portended an unconsciousness that would
spare her the cruelty of the end. The night must be far advanced by
now, she thought. Uncounted centuries had come and dragged away
since Hugh had pressed his lips to hers and she had ridden into the
greenwood. The heat of the fire above her grew steadily fiercer, and
she saw with a strange sorrow that the little mountain flowers—
hardy, lovely things that had weathered the drought—were withered
and dying. The smoke poured in billowing storms across the mouth
of the canyon. The bark of the tree felt scorching hot against her
bare arms. And still the frightful glare of the sky lighted up, as if in
dreadful enchantment, the little space of unburned forest where she
was confined.
And now the jaws of the flame were closing behind her. Only a
little island was left, and any instant the faint night wind would blow
the red tongues into the thicket beside her. It was the end. Perhaps
the smoke—rarely unbearably dense, rangers know, even at the very
edge of the forest fire—might bring unconsciousness after all. She
felt herself drifting.
Sobbing words were at her lips. “Be merciful,” she pleaded to the
Powers of whom mercy is the eternal spirit. “Don’t make it last any
longer! Let me go to sleep——” Yet no ear, it seemed to her, could
hear her above the frightful roar of the fire. And even her arms were
bound so that she could not stretch them up in supplication.
And it was as if her prayer had been heard. At least she was not
to endure the end in loneliness. A sharp, high bark pierced through
the angry crackle and roar of the fire, and Shep leaped to her side.
Only a narrow path remained between the two converging walls of
flame behind her: a dreadful place of blasting heat and blinding
smoke and darting flame tongues, yet the dog had sprung through
like a winged creature. Behind him, still brave and strong and
enduring, came his master.
He also sprang bravely through the closing barrier of flame. A
great spirit of undying strength was on him, and the red arms
reached for him in vain. He swung to her side, a dim, strange figure
that at first seemed only a figment of fancy born in her prayers. He
did not speak to her. Only strangled sobs were at his lips. His white-
bladed hunting knife flashed at her bonds.
He snatched off his coat, wrapping it in one motion about her
head and shoulders. He knew how those fire tongues he had just
passed through would receive her tresses. And then she felt
muscular arms go around her. As lightly and as strongly as if on the
wings of Death itself he lifted her to his breast. He sprang forward
with all his strength. And the three of them fought their way back—
through the gates of peril—to the last remaining island in the sea of
flame.
 CHAPTER XXX
It was more than a reprieve,—the little hour that they would
have together before their own island was submerged. They were
three shepherds, and in their united strength they were not so
fearful of such stars as would be borne into their sky. Here was
comradeship instead of loneliness, courage instead of terror, and the
deathless joy of love instead of despair.
They went, the three of them, back to the motionless flock. In
the first place the sheep were fairly in the center of the space of
unburned forest—a brushy hollow where the smoke was least—
moving just enough to keep halfway between the steadily advancing
fire up-wind and the slow-creeping backfire in the opposite direction.
Besides, they were shepherds, and in their own hearts they felt a
blind but undeniable satisfaction in being with the flocks at the end.
José and his employer had done their work well. In any direction
their victims chose to look the forest was swept with fire. And in the
ruby glare the resistless march of the flames was a strange and
awful thing to watch. Sweeping fast up the ridges, creeping with
almost imperceptible progress down the glades, leaping with
indescribable ferocity through the green branches of the ancient
trees, slashing through a brush wall and crossing in one pounce the
streams and the trails. This last hour was one of weird and terrible
beauty, at least. The three of them stood beside the silent flocks,
quietly waiting for their fate.
There was no use in trying to drive the sheep. There was no
place for them to go. True, to the right and left of the flock the
flame-wall was slightly more distant than to the front and rear, but it
was as impassable one place as another. Besides, the sheep
themselves refused to be driven. They too were quietly waiting for
the end.
“One more hour,” Hugh whispered. His arms went about her,
silently and strongly, as if to shelter her. “It can’t be over an hour
more. And then we go—some place—together.”
The girl shivered in his arms. “I wish it would come soon. It hurts
—to breathe.”
It was so. The heated air tortured the lungs. There was none of
the cool delight that usually precedes the hour of dawn in the
mountain realms. Above them the pines stood in their dark watch:
silent, somber, noble sentries of the wilderness. But for all their
venerable years and their great strength, they could not stand
against the enemy that menaced them now. The red tongues would
sweep through them, they would shudder and fall, and only black
trunks, dismal and ugly, would remain when the red scourge had
passed.
The girl suddenly turned entreating eyes to his. There was only
the dark shadow of fear in them now, none of the mad panic they
had had in the nearby canyon. “Listen, Hugh,” she whispered, just in
his ear. “I have one thing to ask—the hardest thing of all.”
Hugh flinched—ever so slightly—and an immeasurable dread
came into his face. “Tell me what it is. I think I know.”
“It’s going to be hard because—you love me. And you do, don’t
you? I can’t be brave if you don’t. I want to keep remembering it
——”
He nodded, gravely. No words were needed to assure her. This
strong shepherd could only speak truth at a time like this.
“But we’re mountain people—and you know it will be the best.
And it’s because you love me—that I know you’ll do it for me. To
spare me—and then yourself. I’d have done it back there if my
hands hadn’t been tied.”
He understood. Her hand stole around him and touched the butt
of his pistol. For a long breath he waged an inward battle, and he
called on all the powers of his spirit to give him strength. But it was
true that they were of the mountains; and they saw issues straight.
This was no hour for emotionalism and folly. The flames swept
nearer; but with one press of his finger on the revolver trigger he
could save this girl he loved the final horror of a fiery death. One
shock, one sweep through the darkness, and then peace: not the
slow agony of the enfolding flames. He could not do better service.
He was the shepherd still.
“Yes,” he promised. “I’ll do it—at the end of the hour. And the
dog too.”
It was only fair to include the dog. He was one of the triumvirate.
He had kept faith, he had stood the test. The moments were born,
passed and died. The tall trees caught, flamed, and fell. The smoke
clouds gathered, enfolded the three of them, and passed on.
They were nearly blind from the wood smoke, the heat had
become almost too much for living flesh to bear. There was no need
of waiting longer, perhaps to fall into unconsciousness from the
smoke and then to waken to feel the flames licking at the flesh. The
wall of fire was still nearly a mile distant to the west, but its march
was swift. Hugh’s terror had gone, and he found himself longing for
such cool peace as would follow the third revolver shot.
The girl’s lips pressed his. She knew the progress of his thoughts.
“There’s no use of waiting any longer,” she said unwaveringly. “Let
me be the first.”
“The dog first,” he told her. He couldn’t get away from an all-
engrossing desire to keep her with him to the end, and to spring out
of life with his hands in hers. Perhaps it would be kinder to spare her
the sight of Shep’s death—yet his spirit lacked the strength.
“The dog first,” the girl repeated. “And don’t—wait—any more.”
The dog’s appealing eyes were upon them. Their own spirit—that
of immortality itself which only men seem to possess—had pervaded
him, and the dark eyes seemed unafraid. To the beasts, death is a
darkness and a fear; but Shep knew that these two masters would
have only mercy and kindness for him. Hugh’s hand reached back
for the revolver.
But the forest gods had not written that Shep should die so soon.
The drama of the flaming forest was not yet over. An interlude
strange and startling past all words; three figures—vivid in outline
and bathed in the fire’s glow—came speeding toward them from the
thickets to the east. A gasp of wonder fell from Hugh’s lips as he
beheld them.
Two of the forms were unfamiliar, but one of them was known
and beloved of old. Hugh couldn’t mistake the trim figure, the
curved undeveloped horns of the first of the three. No break
appeared in the fiery wall toward the east, yet Spot—his own
unmistakable form and his wool unsinged—ran steadily toward them
in plain sight of all three. It was as if he had returned from the
shadow world, a ghostly savior in the hour when his old followers
hovered at the gulf of death. A great wave of hope swept the man’s
frame.
But in an instant he saw the explanation. Spot and his ewes had
not come unaccompanied. A tawny form loped swiftly behind them.
It was Broken Fang, the monarch of the cougars, and he had simply
driven the three bighorn down into his own hunting ground at last.
“If there’s a way in, there must be a way out,” Hugh spoke
sharply. “Stand still, so the cougar’ll come in range.”
Suddenly he seemed to know that in some invisible and secret
way that he could not trace, the whole issue of life and death had
centered down to his war with Broken Fang. He couldn’t have told
why. Dimly he knew that after days and hours of desperate pursuit,
following still the ancient herd-instinct and perhaps impelled by the
memories of certain crises, when he had run with the domestic
sheep, Spot had come here for protection from the tawny creature
that threatened him. After that desperate foe was conquered, he
would pay his debt to Hugh,—not through conscious impulse but by
the mandates of some great law of the wilderness and life that no
man may name or read. Hugh drew his revolver, but its bullet was
not for Shep. And the three of them crouched low, waiting for the
cat to come in range.
He gave no thought to the fact that a pistol is usually a futile
weapon indeed against such a mighty, strong-lived animal as a great
cougar. He knew by the animal’s frantic leaps that he was desperate
with hunger, stark mad from the long chase that had never seemed
to end, and frenzied, perhaps, by the fire. The felines do not often
chase their game in open pursuit; but in his madness he had
forgotten his hunting cunning. He saw the motionless flock and
came at a charge.
Spot hurried around the flank of the flock and, watching the
cougar’s advance, Hugh was wholly blind to the fact that every one
of those three thousand sheep lifted their lowered heads. The
cougar came almost straight toward him, as fast as an African lion in
the charge. He had emerged from the brush only a little more than a
hundred yards distant, and half of the space between had already
been crossed. But still Hugh held his fire. He knew that only at a
point-blank range would the little pistol bullet stop that wild charge.
And the calm, sure strength of the wilderness itself came down
and sustained him during the stress and fury of the attack. His face
was impassive, his hands steady as bars of steel, his eyes were
narrow and bright and clear. He raised the revolver. He glanced
coolly down its sights. And he fired for the first time when the great
cat was hardly forty feet away.
The bullet sped true, inflicting a mortal wound, and the great
beast recoiled. But the shocking power of the lead was not enough
to destroy wholly the mighty engine of life in Broken Fang’s body. He
snarled once in fury and sprang forward again. But it was not the
hunting charge now. It was the blind, savage rush of a wounded
animal, ready to fight to the death.
Again Hugh shot with amazing accuracy, and again the cat went
down. But the impetus of his fury could not be overcome. He leaped
forward, and the third bullet was a complete miss. The fourth,
following quickly upon it, inflicted a flesh wound but halted him not
at all. And he crashed down once more at the fifth.
But even then the vital, surging life in the creature still lingered.
He came creeping forward, fangs gleaming, long talons bared. An
instant more Hugh waited, standing straight and motionless. Only
one bullet remained, and no risks must be taken with that. Shep—
who had rushed about the flock at Spot’s approach—came charging
to his master’s aid.
One long second dragged away, with a curious effect of silence
and immeasurable suspense. It was such a picture that might never
be effaced from the memory: the suddenly awakened sheep, the
approaching forest fire, the motionless figures, the snarling, creeping
feline, and the red glow as of the abyss over all. The creature
paused—scarcely ten feet distant—and gathered himself for a final
spring. Hugh fired his last bullet.
There was one strange instant more in which the bunched
muscles relaxed and the great body wilted in the pine needles. The
dog leaped upon it, but it was already impotent. A strength such as
but rarely comes to man had held Hugh’s hand steady; and the shot
had made a clean passage through the creature’s brain.
Broken Fang’s trail of rapine and carnage had come to an end at
last. He typified all that was most deadly and terrible in the
wilderness, and he had fallen in fair battle with the breed whose
strength—in such regions where they venture—has conquered the
wilderness. He was a forest monarch; but his foe was the shepherd.
Talon and fang and supple strength had not been availing.
He would linger no more about the white flocks, and the Little
People along the game trails had seen him steal by for the last time.
No more would the deer know his long, shuddering scream as the
night came down. He lay as if fallen in battle against the flocks,—a
token of man’s dominance of the wild.
Hugh turned from him to find a strange stir and excitement
among the sheep. It seemed to him that in those invisible ways no
man may trace, a knowledge and a message was being passed from
one to another; and a new hope and spirit was sweeping the flock.
There was no concerted movement as yet. Still the sheep stood
motionless, but their heads were raised. The only moving forms
were those of Spot and his ewes, running along the flank of the
flock. And suddenly Spot turned back in the direction that he had
come.
 And every animal in that flock of three thousand leaped after him
in pursuit. The whole expanse of white lurched forward like an
avalanche starting from the high peaks. Hugh cried out in
irrepressible wonder, and thrill after thrill coursed like electricity
through his frame. An unspeakable rapture flooded his being; and he
whirled about to find a white flame—no less miraculous than this
sudden sweeping-forward of the flocks—mounting in Alice’s face.
The dog raced forward, barking.
By instinct rather than reason the shepherds understood. Their
old leader had for the moment at least returned to the sheep; they
rallied as instinctively as soldiers at the sight of their beloved
general, and they were ready to follow him even into the flame. It
made no difference that he was leading straight toward the flaming
wall to the east, a dreadful region where the fire raged fiercely and
whence without his leadership they would have been afraid to go.
They ran as if with renewed spirit.
Perhaps they remembered him of old and gave him their trust.
Perhaps he brought them word of some new hope that lay even in
the jaws of death. Swiftly the flock fell into its old formation, the
strongest in front, every black marker in its place. They swept like a
foam-covered sheet of water into the red dusk of the distant forest.
“Come!” Hugh shouted. “Spot’s showing us the way.”
 CHAPTER XXXI
“The Little People show the way,” was the saying of a more
credulous race in an older West; and Hugh knew its truth at last.
This was no blind lead,—the westward course of the bighorn ram in
the van of the sheep flock. He led them straight to a pass that only
the wild creatures knew, a course already taken by such of the
animals as had been trapped between the converging walls of flame
and through which Broken Fang had pursued him. The instincts of
the lesser folk had served when Hugh’s own conscious intelligence
and knowledge had failed.
After a half-mile’s wild run Spot turned into a narrow-mouthed
canyon, leading in a long course clear to the high peaks. A creek had
flowed through it in some past age and carved its banks, but
through some geological catastrophe its waters were diverted and
only a dry bed of stones remained. Half-hidden by heavy brush
thickets, neither Fargo nor Alice had ever dreamed of its existence: it
was just one of many unknown gorges in the unlimited mountain
spaces of the American West. Spot—perhaps wholly unaware of the
fire—had sped down it before the pursuit of Broken Fang, and now
that his enemy was slain he was simply taking the same course back
to his own people in the mountains.
The flame had not yet crept down its rocky, barren walls. It was
such a place as the rattlesnakes love, but not a feeding ground for
sheep; and the little herbage that grew between its bowlders had
not offered a swift passage for the fire. The flames raged above
them on each side, but the fiery walls had not yet converged and
made the impassable barrier on which Fargo had counted. And
Spot’s whole flock sped behind him into its sheltering depths.
They were none too soon. Within a few minutes the advancing
tide of flame would have covered its mouth if indeed it had not crept
down over the steep walls into the canyon floor itself. But the
straight road to safety was open at last. Far beyond, leading him like
a star, Spot could see the glorious white peaks of his home. The
domestic sheep could not follow him all the distance, yet the way
was clear and safe for them completely beyond the outer reaches of
the fire. And all that Hugh and Alice had to do—with Shep running
and barking with joy beside them—was to follow the white flocks.
The lesser folk had shown the way,—just as many times before in
the long roll of the ages. No man could have followed Spot out from
the terror of the fire that night and still thought—in monstrous
arrogance—that the wild things of the world were created only for
his own blood-lust and his own pleasure. The comradeship of men
and beasts is of ancient origin, and its utility is not yet gone. The
bighorn ram—exiled by birth among strangers and lost to his
brethren once more because of the cougar’s hunting—was headed
back to his own snow-capped peaks—and Hugh and Alice and the
surging flocks had simply followed his lead. And the way he had
shown was that of life and safety when all other paths were closed.
Just before the dawn broke, Hugh and Alice stood behind the
flock, safe and far from the ravages of the fire. Already Spot and his
two ewes had sped up a precipitate trail—where, because of the
steep rocks and the interference of Shep, the domestic sheep could
not follow—and now all three thousand of them were quietly grazing
at the very foot of the high mountains. And no man may say
whether or not—like the lame child of Hamlin town—they gazed with
wistful eyes toward the misty mountain realms where their leader
had gone. They had been of the mountains too, when the world was
young, and perhaps they found themselves longing for the steep
ways and the hard days and the fierce delights that constitute the
lives of those mountain monarchs, the bighorn sheep.
The dawn grew in the east. The white peaks glowed and
gleamed. And the girl’s brown hand crept into Hugh’s.
“Did you know,” she asked him, whispering, “that we’ve won?
That we’re safe, after all? The rangers are probably already on the
way to fight the fire, and we’ve nothing more to fear.”
 He turned to her, and they had a moment of laughter in which
they rejoiced at each other’s appearance. Their clothes were torn
and half burned away; the man’s eyebrows and lashes were singed;
and their skins were smudged with soot. But the perils and the
stress had left no weight upon their spirits. They were blistered,
hungry, desperately fatigued, but they were gloriously happy and
triumphant.
“We’ve won,” he echoed. “A few fatalities—but not enough to
count.” He had engaged in much folly in his time, but it was to be
said of Hugh that he wasted no emotion or maudlin words over the
dead body of José in the burning brush behind. “And we can get
Fargo too—on a charge of arson, at least. There will be some way to
handle him. And the only thing left to talk about is you and I.”
“Shep, too,” she reminded him soberly.
The man glanced down into the loving brown eyes of the
shepherd dog. He also was dirty and disheveled,—a shocking thing
to be seen in a drawing-room but beloved past all utterance here.
“Heaven forgive me, Shep, for forgetting you,” the man cried,
dropping to his knees. He was quite sober as he held the dog a long
moment in his strong arms. His bronzed face was intent. It was
enough reward for Shep. His master released him, and he circled
round the two of them, barking in mad joy.
And after all they attended to Shep’s destinies very swiftly. No
wealth on earth could take him from them. And because their
thought was clear and their understanding great, they did not even
consider banishing him to a life of ease,—a chimney corner where he
might doze away the days. Shep was of the world of toil; until his
noble spirit departed from his body he would still have his guard of
honor over the sheep. He would still know the hard labor, the long
grinding hours, the nervous sleep in the firelight beloved of long
ago, and perhaps—for reward—a plain meal and a caress at the end
of the day.
“And if you’re going to stay with Shep,” the girl went on, her eyes
averted, “it means—that you’re going to stay with the sheep?”
 He smiled strangely. “Could I ever leave them, Alice?” He groped
for words, but none had ever been invented that could reveal the
sudden, moving impulses of his soul. “I can’t tell you how much it
has all meant—how much it will mean in the future. Don’t you see,
Alice—that this is my rightful place? With the sheep? In the
wilderness? I couldn’t go—even if you sent me away, I’d have to go
into the sheep business on my own account.”
“That’s right—you could. You could raise money——”
He suddenly laughed,—in sheer delight. His wealth—forgotten in
the great vaults in an Eastern city—would be of use to him, after all.
In a few breathless sentences he told her of his past life, his wasted
days, and his regeneration. They would fill the hills with the feeding
flocks, these two. Still they would know the comradeship of the
camp fire, the night wind whispering through the secret places. It
was their heritage, and they would not forego it. They were the
shepherds, and this was their destiny.
“And if we’re both going to have old Shep, and both follow the
flocks—there’s another consideration, too,” Hugh went on. “Maybe
it’s too much to ask. But the soldier has seen some service; and he
can’t restrain himself any longer. We’ve got to have each other, too.”
A strong man’s love looked out to her from his eyes, and his face
was sober and wistful with entreaty. There was just one instant in
which the whole world hung suspended over a pit of darkness. And
then, with a glad little cry, she stole into his arms.
“Each other—always,” she told him. “Oh, shepherd of my heart!”

And perhaps the spirit of the Old Colonel—sitting in the

Greenwood Club and dreaming of the mountain realms he loved—
came wandering over peak and plain and saw these two, their arms
about each other and their eyes lighted with fond dreams—and
swiftly stole back to make its report to its master. And thereupon the
old man smiled in his half-doze, wondering at the mighty ways of
worlds and men,—and the calm spirit of the flocks, grazing in the
forest.
 THE END

Transcriber’s Notes:
Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Obvious
punctuation and typesetting errors have been corrected without
note. Where multiple spellings were found, majority use has been
employed.

[End of Shepherds of the Wild by Edison Marshall]

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