She sat there for a long moment and she was so still that a gray squirrel, anxiously sniffing the sinister breeze, came close to her before he was aware of her presence. She took swift account of her equipment--two large canteens freshly filled with water, a compact little case of sandwiches, a sharp hatchet in its leather case, three sacks tied to the back of her saddle. Then, with her Scotch chin thrust a little forward and her Spanish mouth smiling and tender, she turned her horse and set swiftly forth on the red trail that led to Marble Peak. CHAPTER XV THE new Forest Ranger for the Big Sur District and Elmer Bunty, his Scout, rode rapidly away from the doctor’s camp on the night of the fire alarm. They spoke sharply and concisely to each other and were immensely cool and collected about it all, but each of them was high keyed with excitement. To the boy, it was a vivid drama, staged for his especial benefit, and to Dean Wolcott it was the final stage of his proving. Hotly as he had exulted when Ginger yielded for that instant and keenly as he had wanted that moment with her by the creek, away from the gay and strident music and the gay and friendly people, he was glad, now, for its postponement. When he had conquered his first fire he would go to her with another decoration, another evidence of his citizenship in her vigorous world: he smiled at his heroics but he continued to be satisfied that things had worked out as they had. Snort was making for the cottage at Post’s at an eager pace and the Mabel horse galloped earnestly and clumsily after them, and sometimes the rhythm of the hurrying hoofs was like the lilt and swing of the music, back at the Lodge ... when Ginger was in his arms. There was an hour of swift and sure preparation and then a snatch of sleep; and at the first graying light of dawn they were on their way. Rusty, the Airedale, was left at Post’s, but before they had ridden an hour he had overtaken them, panting with a violence which seemed almost to rend him asunder, a bit of torn rope hanging to his collar. “He _has_ to be with me,” said Elmer Bunty, proudly. “I’ll take care of him, Ranger.” So the shabby little dog went on with them, and rested thankfully while they made a brief stop at the Golinda ranch; Mateo Golinda had left an hour earlier for the fire, and his wife would ride after them with food and coffee late in the afternoon. “It’s your first fire, isn’t it?” she said, regarding him thoughtfully with her bright and friendly eyes. “It’s hard, heart-breaking work, but I think you’ll enjoy fighting--and winning. Mateo is wonderful; he will be at your right hand.” She had cleverly calculated the time they would be passing and had stirrup cups of hot chocolate for them; she set them off as blithely as if they had been going to a barbecue. A heartening person, Margaret Golinda; across a continent and an ocean, down the long corridor of the years, her house would always be “King’s X!” to Dean Wolcott.