"Let's get on quickly, for we may find the fire between us on the outer trail." He hastily mounted his horse.
"Then you didn't take this as a short cut," said Collinson, with dull perseverance in his idea.

"Why not?
It looks all clear ahead." "Yes," said Key hurriedly, "but it's been only a leap of the fire, it's still raging round the bend.

We must go back to the cross-trail." His face was still flushing with his very equivocating, and his anxiety to get his companion away.

Only a few steps further might bring Collinson before the ruins and the "Notice," and that discovery must not be made by him until Key's plans were perfected.

A sudden aversion to the man he had a moment before wished to reward began to take possession of him.