Hetty caught her breath and glanced quickly at the visitor, but both men appeared perfectly matter-of-fact. She said: "Weren't you sick last night, Mr. Buf'lo? I thought I heard you." "Yes, ma'am. Nothing to speak of. Just a li'l spell. Sometimes they hit me and then ag'in they don't." It was dry the next six weeks. It was also scorching hot. The country began to look wan, then lifeless. On a night in early October a rider came to Johnson's door with word from Horne that the range was on fire. A blaze eight miles wide was sweeping the far shoulder of The Hatter. The messenger delivered this information in a subdued, expressionless voice, sitting his foaming horse in front of the porch, to Lafe inside the house. CHAPTER XLI A NIGHT RIDE AND DEATH OF BUFFALO JIM "I'll go round up the pasture for you," he ended. "Will Nugget do? I kin catch him easiest." As Johnson was saddling, he told Hetty through the window that perhaps he would not be back for a week. "Say, Lafe"--Shortredge was at his elbow, plucking the sleeve of his shirt--"say, I want to go along." "I don't reckon you'd ought, Buf'lo," Lafe answered. He spoke in a mild tone, as though the request were a very natural one. "It's all of thirty miles and you know what fighting fire means. There won't be nothing to eat but canned tomatoes and mighty li'l water and--" "Man alive, I know that," said Shortredge, "but I want to go along." Johnson coiled his rope and hung it carefully from the fork of the saddle. "No, I don't think you'd ought to go, Buf'lo." "Why not? Listen to me, Lafe." He began to plead, his manner nervously insistent. "If it's going to come, it's going to come, and a lot of good dodging will do. Give me a chance, and not--say, I don't want to crawl off like a sick rat. Me and you never used to run away, did we? Well, I'd kind of like--I'd kind of like to be on top of a good horse." "Me and you both." "Come on, Lafe. Go get ol' Scrapper for me. I can stand it all right. Let's see The Hatter together, like we aimed to do. The sun'll be just busting himself when we get there." "Well, you know what it means. Go get your saddle. Whatever you say, goes," said Johnson. Ten horsemen met them where the path split, the one to the right sweeping upward and around the rim of the giant mountain. They were in ill-humor, for all had been roused from sleep and they knew what was ahead. Therefore, not a word was exchanged as they dog-trotted in single file. Sometimes only a pinpoint of light, when a cigarette glowed from a long intake, showed where they moved.