The red horse had not gained a yard on the gray.  Slone, keen to judge distance, saw this, and for the first time he doubted Wildfire’s power to ran down the King.  Not with such a lead!  It was hopeless—­so hopeless—­

He turned to look back.  He saw no fire, no smoke—­only the dark trunks, and the massed green foliage in violent agitation against the blue sky.  That revived a faint hope.  If he could get a few miles ahead, before the fire began to leap across the pine-crests, then it might be possible to run out of the forest if it were not wide.

Then a stronger hope grew.  It seemed that foot by foot Wildfire was gaining on the King.  Slone studied the level forest floor sliding toward him.  He lost his hope—­then regained it again, and then he spurred the horse.  Wildfire hated that as he hated Slone.  But apparently he did not quicken his strides.  And Slone could not tell if he lengthened them.  He was not running near his limit but, after the nature of such a horse, left to choose his gait, running slowly, but rising toward his swiftest and fiercest.

Slone’s rider’s blood never thrilled to that race, for his blood had curdled.  The sickness within rose to his mind.  And that flashed up whenever he dared to look forward at Lucy’s white form.  Slone could not bear this sight; it almost made him reel, yet he was driven to look.  He saw that the King carried no saddle, so with Lucy on him he was light.  He ought to run all day with only that weight.  Wildfire carried a heavy saddle, a pack, a water bag, and a rifle.  Slone untied the pack and let it drop.  He almost threw aside the water-bag, but something withheld his hand, and also he kept his rifle.  What were a few more pounds to this desert stallion in his last run?  Slone knew it was Wildfire’s greatest and last race.

Suddenly Slone’s ears rang with a terrible on-coming roar.  For an instant the unknown sound stiffened him, robbed him of strength.  Only the horn of the saddle, hooking into him, held him on.  Then the years of his desert life answered to a call more than human.

He had to race against fire.  He must beat the flame to the girl he loved.  There were miles of dry forest, like powder.  Fire backed by a heavy gale could rage through dry pine faster than any horse could run.  He might fail to save Lucy.  Fate had given him a bitter ride.  But he swore a grim oath that he would beat the flame.  The intense and abnormal rider’s passion in him, like Bostil’s, dammed up, but never fully controlled, burst within him, and suddenly he awoke to a wild and terrible violence of heart and soul.  He had accepted death; he had no fear.  All that he wanted to do, the last thing he wanted to do, was to ride down the King and kill Lucy mercifully.  How he would have gloried to burn there in the forest, and for a million years in the dark beyond, to save the girl!

He goaded the horse.  Then he looked back.