Presently a few clouds passed over the heavens, and then we smelled smoke, of which they seemed composed.

“The bushrangers can’t have set fire to the stockman’s hut, can they?” asked Murden.

“They could not have crossed the prairie so soon, and the distance is too great to allow of such a reflection,” was my answer.

“Hark, I hear the cracking of bushes,” said Fred; “some one is approaching us.”

“Look to your guns, men,” called out Murden; “we do not know but this may be a device of the robbers to get a glimpse of us.”

The policemen cocked their carbines, and sheltered their forms from the bright light behind trees and bushes.

We heard the quick panting of a person who appeared to make his way through the bushes with difficulty, and the next moment the old convict sprang into the clearing, trembling with fatigue and agitation.

“You are all lost,” he shouted, sinking upon the ground, wringing his aged hands, and rocking his body to and fro.

“What do you mean, man?” demanded the lieutenant, sternly.

“I mean that there is no chance to escape—­the bushrangers have fired the forest!”

I felt the blood at my heart grow cold, for too well did I know the import of those dreadful words.

“How do you know this?” asked Murden, calmly.

“I followed the bushrangers when they fled, and mixed with them and talked with them, without being discovered.  They discussed a plan for being revenged upon you and your men.  They did not dare attack you, openly, after you caused the fire to be extinguished; so that Satan upon earth, Nosey, suggested that the forest should be fired at three different places, and that you would seek to escape from the flames by going in an opposite direction.”

“And what will prevent us?” asked Murden, glancing his eyes over his men, who were listening in silence to the revelation.

“All of the best marksmen are going in ambush to the left of us, waiting for your force to attempt to escape that way.  They now guard the passes, and not one of us could get out alive,” groaned the stockman.

“But we can make our way through that portion of the forest which is not burning,” Fred said.

“Impossible,” muttered the stockman; “the flames are spreading with the speed of a horse, and even now a huge wall of fire bars us from the prairie.”

“Why did you not give us notice before?” I asked.

“I came to you the instant a torch was applied to the dry leaves and branches, but before I was twenty rods from the flames I could hardly have returned without danger of being burned.”

“Well, gentlemen, what is to be done?” asked Murden; “shall we stay here and be singed like dead rabbits, or shall we push through the forest and endeavor to escape the ambush?”

“In either case I don’t see but that our prospects of escape are hopeless,” said Fred, quite calmly.