"I'm ready at a moment's notice to guide you safely home."
There was a broad belt of red light in the distant horizon and towards
this Oscar attempted to lead his master, with many a bound and many a
bark.
But Allan wouldn't budge.
"Not in that direction, Oscar, old boy," he said; "our road lies towards
the _setting_, not the rising sun."
"Bow, wow!" barked Oscar, as if reasoning with him, "_bow, wow, wow,
wow_!"
There was something in the dog's demeanour that set Allan a-thinking.
Could the animal really be right and he wrong? He examined the belt of
red light more carefully now. Was that the east? Was that indeed the
crimson clad vanguard that heralds the coming day? Nay, it could not
be, the red was a more lurid red, the light was a fitful light, and as
he gazed he could distinctly make out a confused rolling of great clouds
over it. Then all at once the truth flashed across his mind.
_The forest was on fire_!
How this happened the reader may at once be told: sparks from McBain's
camp fire had towards morning ignited the withered needles that had
fallen from the pine-trees, the brushwood had caught, and next the
underwood of the spruce-trees, and at the very moment that Allan was
gazing skywards his friends were rushing headlong through the woods,
pursued by the devouring element.
Would they ever meet Allan again?