“I reckon I’m a bad citizen, sir, but I hope he makes his getaway before Applegate shows up.”

“Well, he’s one tough scalawag, but I don’t aim to give him away right now.  Shorty is a whole lot better proposition than Dug Doble.”

Dave came back to the order of the day.  “What do you want me to do now?”

The cattleman looked him over.  “You damaged much?”

“No.”

“Burnt in the shoulder, I see.”

“Won’t keep me from swinging a sack and bossing a gang.”

“Wore out, I reckon?”

“I feel fine since breakfast—­took two cups of strong coffee.”

Again Crawford’s eyes traveled over his ally.  They saw a ragged, red-eyed tramp, face and hands and arms blackened with char and grimed with smoke.  Outside, he was such a specimen of humanity as the police would have arrested promptly on suspicion.  But the shrewd eyes of the cattleman saw more—­a spirit indomitable that would drive the weary, tormented body till it dropped in its tracks, a quality of leadership that was a trumpet call to the men who served with him, a soul master of its infirmities.  His heart went out to the young fellow.  Wherefore he grinned and gave him another job.  Strong men to-day were at a premium with Emerson Crawford.

“Ride over and see how Bob’s comin’ out.  We’ll make it here.”

Sanders swung to the saddle and moved forward to the next fire front, the one between Cattle and San Jacinto Canons.  Hart himself was not here.  There had come a call for help from the man in charge of the gang trying to hold the fire in San Jacinto.  He had answered that summons long before daybreak and had not yet returned.

The situation on the Cattle-San Jacinto front was not encouraging.  The distance to be protected was nearly a mile.  Part of the way was along a ridge fairly easy to defend, but a good deal of it lay in lower land of timber and heavy brush.

Dave rode along the front, studying the contour of the country and the chance of defending it.  His judgment was that it could not be done with the men on hand.  He was not sure that the line could be held even with reinforcements.  But there was nothing for it but to try.  He sent a man to Crawford, urging him to get help to him as soon as possible.

Then he took command of the crew already in the field, rearranged the men so as to put the larger part of his force in the most dangerous locality, and in default of a sack seized a spreading branch as a flail to beat out fire in the high grass close to San Jacinto.

An hour later half a dozen straggling men reported for duty.  Shorty was one of them.

“The ol’ man cayn’t spare any more,” the rustler explained.  “He had to hustle Steve and his gang outa their blankets to go help Bob Hart.  They say Hart’s in a heluva bad way.  The fire’s jumped the trail-check and is spreadin’ over the country.  He’s runnin’ another trail farther back.”