The wind had gone down as the afternoon waned, and the fire was working up the valley leisurely when Zen set out on her return trip. A couple of miles from the Lint homestead she met its advance guard. It was evening now; the sun shone dull red through the banked clouds of smoke resting against the mountains to the west; the flames danced and flickered, advanced and receded, sprang up and died down again, along mile after mile of front. It was a beautiful thing to behold, and Zen drew her horse to a stop on a hill-top to take in the grandeur of the scene. Near at hand frolicking flames were working about the base of the hill, and far down the valley and over the foothills the flanks of the fire stretched like lines of impish infantry in single file.

Suddenly she heard the sound of hoofs, and a rider drew up at her side.

She supposed him one of Transley's men, but could not recall having seen him in the camp. He sat his horse with an ease and grace that her eye was quick to appraise; he removed his broad felt hat before he spoke; and he did not call her "ma'am."

"Pardon me--I believe I am speaking to Y.D.'s daughter?" he asked, and before waiting for a reply hastened to introduce himself. "My name is Dennison Grant, foreman on the Landson ranch."

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "I thought--I thought you were one of Mr.

Transley's men." Then, with a quick sense of the barrier between them, she added, "I hope you don't think that I--that we--had anything to do with this?" She indicated the ruined valley with her hand.

"No more than I had to do with those coward's stakes," he answered.

"Neither of us understand just now, but can we take that much for granted?"

There was something about him that rather appealed to her. "I think we can," she said, simply.

For a moment they watched the kaleidoscopic scene below them. "It may help you to understand," she continued, "if I say that I was riding down to see if I could be of some use to Mrs. Landson when the wind changed, and I saw I would be more likely to be needed here."

"And it may help you to understand," he said, "if I say that as soon as immediate danger to the Landson ranch was over I rode up to Transley's camp. Only the cook was there, and he told me of your having set out to help Mrs. Lint, so I followed up. Fortunately the fire has lost its punch; it will probably go out through the night."

There was a short silence, in which she began to realize her peculiar position. This man was the rival of Transley and Linder in the business of hay-cutting in the valley. He was the foreman of the Landson crowd--Landson, against whom her father had been voicing something very near to murder threats not many hours ago. Had she met him before the fire she would have spurned and despised him, but nothing unites the factions of man like a fight against a common elemental enemy. Besides, there was the question, How DID the fire start? That was a question which every Landson man would be asking. Grant had been generous about it; he had asked her to be equally generous about the episode of the stakes.... And there was something about the man that appealed to her.

She had never felt that way about Transley or Linder. She had been interested in them; amused, perhaps; out for an adventure, perhaps; but this man--Nonsense! It was the environment--the romantic setting. As for Drazk--A quick sense of horror caught her as the memory of his choking face protruded into her consciousness....

"Well, suppose we ride home," he suggested. "By Jove! The fire has worked around us."

It was true. The hill on which they stood was now entirely surrounded by a ring of fire, eating slowly up the side. The warmth of its breath already pressed against their faces; the funnel effect created by the circle of fire was whipping up a stronger draught. The smoke seemed to be gathering to a centre above them.

He swung up close to her. "Will your horse face it?" he asked. "If not, we'd better blindfold him."

"I'll try him," she said. "He was all right this afternoon, but he was reckless then with a hard gallop."

Zen's horse trotted forward at her urging to within a dozen yards of the circle of fire. Then he stopped, snorting and shivering. She rode back up the hill.

"Better blindfold him," Grant advised, pulling off his leather coat. "A sleeve of my shirt should be about right. Will you cut it off?"

She protested.

"There's no time to lose," he reminded her, as he placed his knife in her hand. "My horse will go through it all right."

So urged she deftly cut off his sleeve above the elbow and drew it through the bridle of her horse across his eyes.

"Now keep your head down close to his neck. You'll go through all right.

Give him the spurs, and good luck!" he shouted.

She was already careering down the hillside. A few paces from the fire the horse plunged into a badger hole and fell headlong. She went over his head, down, with a terrific shock, almost in the very teeth of the fire.

CHAPTER VII

When Zen came to herself it was with a sense of a strange swimming in her head. Gradually it resolved itself into a sound of water about her head; a splashing, fighting water; two heads in the water; two heads in the water; a lash floating in the water--

"Oh!" She was sure she felt water on her face....

"Where am I?"

"You're all right--you'll be all right in a little while."

"But where am I? What has happened?" She tried to sit up. All was dark.

"Where am I?" she demanded.

"Don't be alarmed, Zen--I think your name is Zen," she heard a man's voice saying. "You've been hurt, but you'll be all right presently."

Then the curtain lifted. "You are Dennison Grant," she said. "I remember you now. But what has happened? Why am I here--with you?"

"Well, so far, you've been enjoying about three hours' unconsciousness,"

he told her. "At a distance which seems about a mile from here--although it may be less--is a little pond. I've carried water in the sleeve of my coat--fortunately it is leather--and poured it somewhat generously upon your brow. And at last I've been rewarded by a conscious word."

She tried to sit up, but desisted when a sudden twitch of pain held her fast.

"Let me help you," he said, gently. "We have camped, as you may notice, on a big, flat rock. I found it not far from the scene of the accident, so I carried you over to it. It is drier than the earth, and, for the forepart of the night at least, will be warmer." With a strong arm about her shoulders he drew her into a sitting posture.

Her eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness. "What's wrong with my foot?" she demanded. "My boot's off."

"I'm afraid you turned your ankle getting free from your stirrup," he explained. "I had to do a little surgery. I could find nothing broken.

It will be painful, but I fear there is nothing to do but bear it."

She reached down and felt her foot. It was neatly bandaged with cloth very much like that which she had used to blindfold Quiver. It was easy to surmise where it came from. Evidently her protector had stopped at nothing.

"Well, are we to stay here permanently?" she asked, presently.

"Only for the night," he told her. "If we're lucky, not that long.

Search parties will be hunting for you, and they will doubtless ride this way. Both of our horses bolted in the fire--"

"Oh yes, the fire! Tell me what happened."

He hesitated.

"I remember riding into the fire," she continued, "and then next thing I was on this rock. How did it all happen?"

"Your horse fell," he explained, "just as you reached the fire, and threw you, pretty heavily, to the ground. I was behind, so I dismounted and dragged you through."

"Oh!" She felt her face. "But I am not even singed!" she exclaimed.

It was plain that he was holding something back. She turned and laid her fingers on his arm. "Tell me how you did it," she pressed.

The darkness hid his modest confusion. "It was really nothing," he stammered. "You see, I had a leather coat, and I just threw it over your head--and mine--and dragged you out."

She was silent for a moment while the meaning of his words came home to her. Then she placed her hand frankly in his.