The two men passed very close to Bud and went on toward the fire. Bud chuckled to himself and felt his way over to the team. Cautiously he lit a match and looked around. It was an old lumber-wagon, with a high box, and the team was a shaggy pair of gray bronchos. Bud noted that there was room to turn the outfit around, so he lost no time in climbing to the seat and gathering up the lines. He had no idea of where he was, and in the darkness and rain he could not even see his team, but he trusted to them to keep the road. Cautiously he turned around, bumping over rocks, down timber and low brush, but managed to get headed the opposite direction and spoke sharply to the team. It was like heading into a black void, but the grays responded with a will. CHAPTER V A GUIDING LIGHT Bud soon found that there was little road. It was more like a cross-country, hit-or-miss proposition. The rain drifted into his face and he clung to the seat with both hands, but the team kept going steadily in spite of the fact that the wagon was never on an even keel. There was nothing to show Bud where he was; nothing but the solid wall of blackness, out of which came the gusty spurts of rain, which drenched him and sent a chill racing up and down his spine. "Gonna get down and walk pretty soon," he told himself, slapping his arms dismally and almost falling off the wagon. "Better stayed in that cabin where it was dry." He wondered in a dull sort of a way whether the Indians were dead and whether he was being pursued by the men who owned the wagon and team. For hours, it seemed to him, he drifted ahead, jolting over rocks, surging in and out of hollows. Then he saw a light. It was a tiny flicker, which glowed for a moment and went out. He stopped the team. A light might mean a habitation, and Bud was badly in need of a habitation. But he could not see the light now. Prompted by a sudden idea, he got off the wagon and walked back, thinking that perhaps he had driven beyond the angle of the light. Finally he picked it up again, but when he moved back toward the wagon it disappeared. He seemed to be in a more open country now, although it was difficult to tell just what the place did look like. He stumbled back to the wagon and deliberated on his next move. He managed to light a match, which showed him that he was still on the road; so he led the team at right-angles, clearing the road and tied them to a jackpine. Taking his rifle he went back to where he could see the tiny light, and struck boldly across country toward it. And he found the going very bad indeed. He could not see the ground, and, after he had picked himself up for the fifth time, he declared aloud that it was surely the rocky road to Dublin. His shoulder and his many bruises ached and he was chilled from the rain. But he kept the light in sight, in spite of the underbrush, logs and rocks, which tripped and bruised him. He lost his rifle and had a difficult time finding it.