"Wait here, Doc," said Wid, "Sim and me want to have a look--we know the track of that car that done the work down here." But when they bent over the trail, they saw that it was different from what it had been when they left it the night before! Wid cursed aloud, and Sim Gage joined him heartily. "It's wiped out," said Sim. "Some one's been over this trail since last night. This car ain't got no busted tire." "That may be the very man that came down and called me!" exclaimed Doctor Barnes. "I heard him when he went down the road," nodded Nels Jensen--"last night. I'll bet that's the same car. I'll bet it come down out of the mountains." They passed on up the creek valley toward the Reserve far more rapidly than the weaker car of Big Aleck had climbed the same grade the day previous, but the main body of the forest lay three thousand feet above the valley floor, and the ascent was so sharp that at times they were obliged to stop in order to allow the engine to cool. "What's that?" said Sim Gage after a time, when they had been on their way perhaps an hour up the winding canon, and had paused for the time. "Smoke? That ain't no camp fire--it's more." They made one or two more curves of the road and then got confirmation. A long, low blanket of smoke was drifting off down the valley to the right, settling in a gray-blue cloud along the mountain side. The wind was from left to right, so that the smoke carried free of the trail. "She's a-fire, boys!" exclaimed Wid. "We better git out of here while we can." "We ain't a-going to do nothing of the sort," said a quiet voice. Wid Gardner turned to look into the face of Sim Gage. "We're a-going right on up ahead." Wid Gardner looked at Doctor Barnes. The latter made his answer by starting the car once more. Although they did not know it, they now were approaching their journey's end. They could not as yet see the swift advance of the fire from tree to tree, because the wind as yet was no stronger than the gentle air of morning; could not as yet hear any roar of the flames. But they saw that now, on these mountain slopes before them, one of the most valuable timber bodies in the state was passing into destruction. "God damn their souls!" said Wid Gardner fervently. "Wasn't it enough what they done to us already?" "Go on, Doc." It was Sim's voice. Wid Gardner knew perfectly well what drove Sim Gage on. But the car soon came to a sudden halt. A couple of hundred yards on ahead lay an open glade. At the left of the trail stood a great wall tent. In an instant, every man was out of the car, the three ranchmen, like hounds on the scent, silently trotting off, taking cover from tree to tree. A few moments, and the four of them, rifles at a ready, had surrounded the tent. As they closed in, they all heard a high, clear voice--one they would not have suspected Sim Gage to have owned--calling out: "Throw up your hands, in there!" Actually, Sim Gage was leader!