The roaring of the flames drowned the scouts’ shouts to each other, too; and the heat puffed upon their backs as though somebody had suddenly swung open the door of an enormous furnace. Suddenly Cody saw his friend throw up his hand, and knew that he shouted rather than heard the sound of his voice. Jack turned at a sharp angle, too, and Buffalo Bill followed suit. In a moment a glint of steel-blue water ahead invigorated Cody as well as his comrade. Lake Bendigo was at hand! In fifteen minutes they were on the shore. The water was a blessed relief to their eyes when they plunged their faces into it. In the rear the fire roared mightily, and the smoke now began to drift down upon them with smothering thickness. “We’d better take off our clothes and swim for the island, heh?” queried Jack. “Yes. There’s a bunch of driftwood that will make some kind of a raft. We’ll use it to transport our clothing and guns.” They stripped swiftly and were about to step into the water and push off the rude raft piled with their possessions when: Ping! The bullet buried itself in a tree trunk right beside Buffalo Bill’s head. “Holy Christmas!” exclaimed Texas Jack. “That devil has got ahead of us,” declared Cody. “That bullet came from the island.” “Why, he’s got us between two fires!” exclaimed Texas, bound to joke under any and all circumstances. For an instant the scouts were nonplused. They had involuntarily taken trees, but the heat from the rear was already unpleasant to their bare bodies. “We can’t stay here,” muttered Cody. “I shall go around the lake a ways, Texas, and try to swim over without being seen. You show yourself here. Better still, push off the raft and keep behind it and submerged as much as possible. Make for the island, but go slowly.” “You bet I’ll make for the island. I think I’d rather take cold lead than hot flames. Ouch!” “Meanwhile I’ll try to sneak over and get to the madman’s rear.” “Bare-handed?” “How else, man?” cried Cody. “I must be prepared to swim under water a part of the way. It must be cunning to match his cunning or we are lost, Jack!” Texas Jack realized that this was so, and he made no further objection. Cody glided away through the shadowy forest, and Jack pushed off the raft and dodged another bullet. He was soon floundering in the cold water, pushing the raft before him, but by no means enamored of his position. The fire was behind and would devour him shortly if he returned to the shore. Every few moments a bullet sped from the madman’s hiding-place on the island and “plunked” into the raft, or into the water close beside the swimmer.