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Show fLffl "Tod, what's the matter?" he asked shrilly. "Tod, Is the money back yonder? Did It burn up, Tod?" And then, summoning all bis vigor, "Tod, I done just what you toll me!" West shook his head. v "No, you didn't understand," he said In a moan. "You didn't understand, and the money's burned sure as hell and ... My God, boys, It's my fault I" Someone said: "It ain't your fault Tod. The kid, he got rut-tied." rut-tied." Another said: "ItH be all day with old Jack now!" They all looked at the boy and he knew they were blaming him. All but Tod. Tod did not look his way ; there was something funny about Tod's eyes. Ills nostrils smarted and a lump swelled In his throat suddenly. A helpless feeling ran his bones and West was Just then coming op from the alders along the creek, looking around In a funny way, as If be expected to see somebody or something alarming. When, only minutes later, he heard Tod bawling bis name, bis heart went fllppety-flop and almost choked blm. "Kerry . . . Kerry I . . . A-run-nln', Kerry!" And he was running desperately, hugging the file against his belly. He threw a look to his left where a streamer of thick, white smoke was coming up to mingle with the blue haze which bad been drifting through camp for three days. Brush was on fire south of the barn. Tod began trying to save the cook shanty and Kerry wondered why he didn't throw water on the ollice, which was In greater danger, but Tod, too, was terribly excited. "She's golnM" Tod yelled. "Old -i. 1 I CHAPTER I nMOKE filled his eyes and his U throat Heat, so Intense that It seemed to be fluid, poured over ti)&n. The sound of thi speeder's Dior and the clatter of Its wheels ca the uneven rails was almost drowned In the raging voice of the ti; and ToJ an arm aroun(1 nlra-tmjdlng nlra-tmjdlng hi close 88 tneJ rocVed tr.f swayed down the grade, was tsibllng. fut he wasn't going to cry, even if e was more scared than be ever jaj been In his seven years of experience. ex-perience. Not much, he wasn't! T,4t husged the precious letter-file Tith old Jack's pay-roll In It closer, i J tried to look ahead ; and when tsaw living flames from the burn-jri burn-jri cars of chemical wood swept tetoss the track like a curtain, he thfew himself flat and squeezed bis eves shut and held his breath, and d I not complain with so much as 1 1 grunt when Tod's big body, eptawllng suddenly over his small ffe:i could old Jack, and breaking your neck for a man like that would be little enough to do. Jack had been so worried since the fire started, day before yesterday! yester-day! He had been In town when it came up, and had come back, driving the engine himself, snaking snak-ing the empties over the steel fit to shake the stakes out. The crew was on the fire then, of course, and old Jack's voice, generally so good-natured, was sharp as a knife when be questioned ques-tioned Tod who was telephoning for more wardens. Jack stuffed the payroll money Into the safe as he talked, and then, telling Tod certain things to do all in one breath, he Jumped Into the waiting buckboard and galloped to the southward, where a mile-wide front of slash fire advanced toward camp. Kerry waked up when Jack came In that night Their room was next the office, with a big bed and a little lit-tle one; and he lay in his little one and looked through the open doorway door-way and saw Jack standing by the desk, shirt all scorched, hair singed, talking lowly to Tod. It was bad, he said. He'd brought half the crew in to get some rest; he'd turn in himself and try to catch a wink, because with all that chopping afire, tomorrow was going go-ing to be hell Itself. . . . And tomorrow was, with the telephone tel-ephone ringing and help from town coming through all day, and the smoke thick and thicker. But at breakfast this morning, eaten before the first crack of dawn, Jack had said: "We got an even break, now. We'd ought to bold her, but you never can tell. Why, yesterday, some of them damn' birch stubs got burnin' clean to the top, 'nd I'll bet they was throwin' live brands half a mile ahead of 'em." "And they might go further than that," Tod West commented. They might, another said; not likely, but still they might and then Jack pulled Tod to one side where nobody but Kerry could hear and said: "Since this thing broke I've thought no more about pay-roll than the boys have about pay day. Shows I'm gettln' old. You'll be here, Tod. Somebody with a head on 'em's got to stny by the telephone tele-phone again. It ain't likely she'll get away from us. If she does, It ain't likely she'll get clean to camp In a hurry. But if anything should happen, you get that pay-roll Into town. Silver's all right, but it's mostly bills and bllls'd burn sure In that old safe of mine." "They sure would," agreed Tod. Then Jack had looked at Kerry. "Be good boy, Bon!" be said cheerily, as if he were only going out on the Job and not to a fire line. "Be good boy," and tweaked Kerry's ear playfully. "And him," he said to Tod, suddenly sud-denly sober and Jerking his head at the lad. "Twenty-two hunderd, small as It Is, 'd bust me right now, so get that out If anything pops. But him ... If you get a chance, send him into town anyways." . . . So Kerry knew that Jack thought more of him than he did of going bust He sat there a long time, feeling Important It wasn't much that he could do for Jack ever, but now, watching that file, he knew that if fire should come into camp he'd grab that box and get to the speeder faster than he had ever gotten anywhere before In bis life. He rose finally and looked through the window toward the water tank where the speeder waited. Tod1 office's goln', Kerry 1" His voice was funny, for all the world as though he were glad because the office was being licked by hungry, fast-devouring flames. He did not start away at once. He stood there priming the motor slowly, spilling gasoline, because his hands shook so much. He kept his eyes on the office where flames were licking at the roof, eating Into the hewn log sides. "She's goln", Kerry 1" he said and gave a queer laugh which made the boy wonder if grown men, also, sometimes laughed when they felt like crying. He glanced at Kerry, then, and at the letter-file and licked his lips. "Sure you got the right one?" he asked. "The one yon told me," stoutly. stout-ly. "We'd better haul, hadn't we?" "Just a minute, nowl" He waited, standing there and watching . while a part of the office of-fice roof tumbled in. Only then did he shove the speeder ahead until un-til the motor caught and coughed. And then they were zooming past the siding, and he screamed from the heat that beat upon him; opened op-ened his throat and yelled and writhed against the weight of Tod's body. Then, suddenly, the torture was past and he was half sitting up and they were hitting It down the grade. Then he felt better and they were clicking over the switch points and here was town and the motor stopped and Tod West was calling out to somebody with a lot more excitement than he had shown back at camp that Jack's headquarters were burning. A group quickly gathered, mostly old men and boys, because the best man power of town was out on the fire line, and they followed Tod and Kerry across the street to the bank. They crowded Into the bank and a man rose from his desk behind the counter. "Jack's headquarters are gone," said Tod, handing the file to the man. "But we brought In the payroll. pay-roll. Did my damnedest to save something of camp but I was alone. Kerry, here, lugged the money out of the office Just in time." "That's fine," said the banker, pressing the catch of the file. "That's sure lucky! I happen to know that if Jack should lose " He stopped short, then, and Tod leaned forward and the others pressed op close, attracted by the look on West's face, likely. It was a look that even a seven-year-old boy would notice. "Why," the banker said, "why, Tod, it's empty!" A moment of terrific silence followed fol-lowed and then Tod looked down at Kerry and said in a queer, unfriendly un-friendly way: "Kid, which file did yon bring?" The boy swallowed, with a new sort of thrill running bis small frame. "Why," he said, "why, I fetched . . . Yon told me the one on the safe, Tod!" The bookkeeper swore slowly under un-der his breath and looked at the banker. "Good God, I trusted him!" he said in a whisper. The other clicked his tongue. "Oh-h!" he said, long-drawn. "But he's only a little boy," he added and slapped the file shut "That surely is going to be tough for Jack !" Kerry's knees were shaking and there seemed to be a vacant place In his middle. "Kid, Which File Did You Bring?" a sense of having been put-upon, abused, outraged. Jack bad gone bust because his pay-roll was burned np but he bad done Just as he had been told to do. . . . And before he knew what he was doing, he was sobbing Just that: "I fetched the one you told me! I did I I did r" He got that far before his sobs choked him and he slunk to a corner, cor-ner, burying his face In his arms. Old Jack was bust and they said it was because he got rattled when he had done as he'd been told and tried his best to help! CHAPTER II IT RAINED toward 'evening and Jack Snow got to town at dusk. He had heard about his camp, of course, but he had not heard about the loss of his pay-roll. And when they told him he said nothing for, perhaps, a quarter of a minute but In those seconds he aged. Before, men had called him Old Jack because be-cause they loved him. . . . Afterward, After-ward, he was an old man, In fact. The first thing he snid after he knew the worst that bad happened referred to Kerry. He looked at the boy and winked and managed a sort of grin and said: "But you're all right, sonl" as If that were ah he would admit as being of any importance. im-portance. And after that he said but little lit-tle for days. He appeared to listen lis-ten when people talked but if he heard he seldom answered properly. prop-erly. Once he said to Kerry; when they were alone in their room at the mill boarding house: "Tough, to let a conpla thousand bust yon. . . . But It was that dost" He managed to rustle enough to pay off the crew; that is, those who would take what they bad coming. He began to be feverish and talked at night in his sleep, holding the little boy close in his arms while the tremors ran through him. Tod West came to say good-bye and declared again that it was his fault that he should have fetched the letter-file himself. Jack roused from his lethargy. "Fault, hell?" he snorted and spit, the way he used to do. "Yon done your damnedest both of you !" (TO BE CONTINUED) (Ms Was No Time to Act Like a Baby. oe, made his ribs bend out of jbpe. No, sir! This was no time t act like a baby ! Headquarters was going, sure Hough, hut they were getting good old Jack's money out to safety, at was his Job: to help save tod old Jack from going bust '.then you've got a Job like that, flr a man like that, you can't let 4 you're scared, can you? No; sot even at seven, you can't I ille had been outside the office, andlng in the deserted camp ejearlns, staring off up the road iflilch Jack and the crew had taken fore daylight, and where the ok had J-ist gone with dinner the fire-fighters, when the book-eper book-eper called to him. TLIsten, Kerry," Tod had said. "I want you to sit right here un-ttJ un-ttJ I call you or come back. Wind's Bating worse." $ His big, ordinarily good-natured ipe was white, and fine beads of Mature pricked out above his eye-Sws. eye-Sws. Sure," said Kerry Young, and fallowed, his heart going faster ltli Tod looking so scared, f Now, listen, careful. I took the Sayroll out of the cash drawer, e! It's In this letter-file this fje. right here." He laid his hand P the brown box on top of the Another file was on the desk, yd more on a shelf above it; but fd put his hand right on that fecial one. "I'm goln" out to scout $ounl. if anything happens, It fay happen fast. The speeder's ?'ht on the track, now right by m water-tank, th'ere. If I yell, you rng the file and come a-runnln. nderstand that?" -f "Sure, Tod," said Kerry, and fallowed again, even If his mouth fas drier than ever. I "Good boy! Everybody's got to his part, time like this." ! He went out, then, and Kerry ft down on a chair with his Feath fhittery In his throat Re-fronsihliity Re-fronsihliity sat heavily on his small ouhlers, but he,d Jo jwt what pd had told him to do. That pay-was pay-was old Jack's money, and he'd peak his neck to help old Jack, le would! Good old Jack, who ad found him In the house the W before his mother died, and P.!"! doctor anl did all that he tt Vnd wh0-after ti he was a,one' brought to camp. That had been wln-rr wln-rr before last, and it looked as If J? B0ln to tay with Jack Ev , .1 CertaIn,3r hPe1 to a little boy who had nc- y else to look out for him as 4 |