The St. Johns herald., 1896-11-07


 times struck out spark and flame from their heavier footprints as they passed. Their boots crackled and scorched be- meath them. Their shreds of clothing were on fire Their breathing became more difficult until providentially they fell upon an abrupt, fissurelike depres- sion of the soil which the fire had leap ed and into which they blindly plunged and rolled together. A moment of relle1 and coolness followed as they crept along the Assure, filled with damp and rotting leaves.
 "Why not stay here?" said the ex- hausted prisoner.
 And be roasted like sweet potatoes when these trees catch?'' returned the sheriff grimly. ''No" Even as he spoke a dropping rain of fire spattered through the leaves from splintered redwood before overlooked that was now blazing fiercely in the upper wind A vague and undefnable terror was in the air. The confagration no longer seemed to obey any rule of direction. They scram- bled out of the hollow and again dash ed desperately forward
 Beaten, bruised, blackened and smoke grimed, looking less human than the animals who had long since deserted the crest, they at last limped into "wind opening" in the woods that the fire had skirted The major sank ex- haustedly to the ground. The sheriff threw himself beside him. Their strange relations to each other seemed to have been forgotten. They looked and acted as if they no longer thought of anything beyond the present. And when the sher- if finally arose, and, disappearing for several minutes, brought his hat full of water for his prisoner from distant spring that they had passed in their flight, he found him where he had left him, unchanged and unmoved.
 He took the water gratefully and after a pause fixed his eyes earnestly upon his captor. ''I want you to do favor to me-" he said slowly. "I'm not going to offer you bribe to do it either nor ask you anything that isn't in line with your duty. I think I understand you now if I didn't before. Do you know Briggs restaurant in Sacramen- to?'
 The sheriff nodded.
 "Well, over the restaurant are my private rooms-the finest in Sacramen- to. Nobody knows it but Briggs, and he has never told. They've been locked ever since I left. I've got the key still in my pocket. Now, when we get to Sacramento instead of taking straight to jail want you to hold me there as your prisoner for day and night. I don't want to get away. You can take what precautions you Hke-surround the house with policemen and sleep yourself in the anteroom. don't want to destroy any papers or evidence. You can go through the rooms and examine everything before and after. I only want to stay there day and night. I want to be in my old rooms, have my meals from the. restaurant as l used to and sleep in my own bed once more. l want to live for one day like gentle man, as I used to live before came here. That's all It isn't much, Tom. You can do it and say you require to do it to get evidence against me or that you want to search the rooms. "
 The expression of wonder which had come into the sheriff s face at the begin ming of his speech deepened into his old look of surly dissatisfaction. "And that's all you want" he said gloomily. "You don't want no friends-no lawyer? For tell you straight out, major, there ain't no hope for ye when the law once gets hold of you in Sacramento"
 ''That's all. Will you do it?"
 The sheriff's face grew still darker After a pause he said: 'I don't say no, and don't say yes. But" he added grimly, it strikes me we'd better wait till we get clear of these woods before you think of your Sacramento lodgings"
 The major did not reply. The day had worn on. but the fire, now completely encircling them, opposed any passage in or out of that fateful barrier. The smoke of the burning underbrush hung low around them in bank equally impene- trable to vision. They were as alone as shipwrecked sailors on an island girdled by horizon of clouds
 Gro BE CoNTINUED.)