The Forfeit by Ridgwell Cullum Read Free Book Online Page A

that. So, as he rode, the pictures of her failed to hold him, and, finally, his roving gaze became caught and held by a sudden and striking anachronism in the scene about him.
    He claimed Bud's attention with a gesture which roused him from his engrossing thought.
    "Fire," he observed.
    Bud's gaze became rivetted on the spot.
    "Yes, it's fire-sure," he admitted.
    It was a long way ahead. Only the trained eyes of prairiemen could have read the sign aright at such a distance. It was a break in the wonderful sea of varying shades of restful green. It was, to them, an ominous dead black patch which broke the sky-line with unmistakable skeleton arms.
    It was the only remark upon the subject which passed between them, but as they rode on it occupied something more than a passing attention.
    With Jeff his interest was mere curiosity. With Bud it was deeper and more significant. Had the younger man observed him he might have discovered a curious expression almost amounting to pain in the deep eyes which contemplated the blackened limbs where the fire had wrought its havoc.
    As they drew nearer it became apparent that the havoc was even greater than they had first supposed. A wide patch of woodland, hundreds of acres in extent, whose upper limits were confined only by the summit of the valley's slope, where it cut the sky-line, had been completely burnt out. Nor was it possible to tell if even that limit was the extent of the disaster.
    Bud suddenly reined in his horse as they came abreast of it, and his voice broke with painful sharpness upon the deathly stillness of the world about them.
    "It's gone," he cried, with a note of deep distress and grievous disappointment. "It's burnt right out to a shell. Say--"
    "What's gone?"
    The older man glanced round. Then his troubled eyes sought the charred remains of the splendid pines once more.
    "Why-the post." Then he pointed amongst the charred skeletons. "Get a peek right in ther'. See, Jeff. Them walls; them fallen logs. Burnt. Burnt right through to the heart of 'em. That's all that's left of the home that sheltered me for the first sixteen years of my life. Say, I'm sick-sick to death."
    Jeff left his packhorse and moved forward amongst the blackened limbs. The reek of burnt wood hung heavily upon the air. He threaded his way carefully toward the charred remains of an extensive abode, now plainly visible amongst the black tree trunks.
    It was a wide rambling structure, and, though burnt to cinders, much of its general shape, and the great logs which had formed its walls, still remained to testify to all it had been under the hands of those who had originally wrought there.
    Jeff glanced back at the man he had left behind. He had not stirred. He sat in the saddle just gazing at the destruction. That was all. So he turned again to the ruins, and, dismounting, he proceeded on foot to explore.
    * * * * * *
    They were eyes wide with repulsion and a certain horror that gazed down upon the object at Jeff's feet. It was the rotting, charred remains of a human figure. It was beyond recognition, except in so far as its human identity was concerned. The clothes were gone. The flesh was seared and shriveled. The process of incineration was almost complete.
    After a few fascinated moments his eyes searched further along the remains of the old post wall. Another figure lay sprawling on the ground. Near by it a heavy pistol had fallen wide. A rifle, too, lay across the second body.
    Every detail was swiftly absorbed by the man's keenly active brain. He stood back from the gutted precincts and gazed speculatively upon the picture. His imagination reconstructed something of what he believed must have occurred in the deep heart of these wrecked woodlands.
    What of the fire? How had it been started? Was it the work of an incendiary? Had the heat of the summer sun wrought the mischief? Had the hut itself supplied the trouble? None of these questions offered real enlightenment through the answers he could