Monty Price's Nightmare Read Free Page A

called. The child heard, and being frightened ran into the cabin. The dog came barking toward Monty. He was a big, savage animal, a trained watchdog. But he recognized Monty.
    Hurrying forward Monty went to the open door and called Mrs. Muncie. There was no immediate response. He called again. And while he stood there waiting, listening, above the roar of the wind he heard a low, dull, thundering sound, like a waterfall in a flooded river. It sent the blood rushing back to his heart, leaving him cold. He had not a single instant to lose.
    â€œMrs. Muncie,” he called louder. “Come out! Bring the child! It’s Monty Price. There’s forest fire! Hurry!”
    Still he did not get an answer. Then he called little Del, with like result. He reflected that the mother often drove to town, leaving the child in care of the watchdog. Besides, usually Muncie or one of his men was near at hand. But now there did not seem to be any­body here. And that dull, continuous sound shook Monty’s nerve. He yelled into the open door. Then he stepped in. There was no one in the big room—or the kitchen. He grew hurried now. The child was hiding. Finally he found her in the clothespress, and he pulled her out. She was frightened. She did not recognize him.
    â€œDel, is your mother home?” he asked.
    The child shook her head. With that Monty picked her up, along with a heavy shawl he saw, and, hurry­ing out, he ran down to the corral. The horses were badly frightened now. Monty set little Del down, threw the shawl into a watering trough, and then he let down the bars of the gate. The horses pounded out in a cloud of dust. Monty’s horse was frightened, too, and almost broke away. There was now a growing roar on the wind. It seemed right upon him. Yet he could not see any fire or smoke. The dog came to him, whining and sniffing.
    With swift hands Monty soaked the shawl thoroughly in the water, and then wrapping it round little Del and holding her tight, he mounted. The horse plunged and broke and plunged again—then leaped out straight and fast down the road. And Monty’s ears seemed pierced and filled by a terrible, thunder­ing roar.
    For an instant the awful and unknown sound froze him, stiffened him in his saddle, robbed him of strength. It was the feel of the child that coun­teracted this and then roused the dare­devil in him. The years of his range life had engendered wildness and vio­lence, which now were to have expres­sion in a way new to him.
    He had to race with fire. He had to beat the wind of flame to the open parks. Ten miles of dry forest, like powder! Though he had never seen it he knew fire backed by heavy wind could rage through dry pine faster than a horse could run. He would fail in the one good deed of his life. And flashing into his mind came the shame and calumny that before had never affected him. It was not for such as he to have the happiness of saving a child. He had accepted a fatal chance; he had forfeited that which made life signifi­cant to attempt the impossible. Fate had given him a bitter part to play. But he swore a grim and ghastly oath that he would beat this game. The intense and abnormal passion of the man, damned for years, never controlled, burst within him—and suddenly, ter­ribly, he awoke to a wild joy in this race with fire. He had no love of life—no fear of death. All that he wanted to do—the last thing he wanted to do was to save this child. And to do that he would have burned there in the forest and for a million years in the dark be­yond.
    So it was with wild joy and rage that Monty Price welcomed this race. He goaded the horse. Then he looked back.
    Through the aisles of the forest he saw a strange, streaky, murky some­thing, moving, alive, shifting up and down, never an instant the same. It must have been the wind, the heat be­fore the fire. He seemed to see through it, but there was nothing beyond, only