The weight of the dog cost Gus his narrow foothold. He swung free, into space, holding the dog’s collar with one hand. Then, to his horror, he began to swivel. The rope was tied to his belt—the weight of the dog caused him to turn in the air. In a moment his head was pointed down and his legs were waving above him.

“Pull, pull!” he yelled. When he opened his eyes, the world swirled. One moment he would be facing the cliff, the next he would be looking into space. Once, when he twisted, two buzzards flew right by him, so close he felt the beat of their wings in the air.

Then, in a moment, the dog dropped, gone so quickly that he didn’t even bark. Gus still had the collar in his hand—the dog’s skinny head had slipped out. Gus twisted and twisted, as the men pulled him up. He lost consciousness; when he came to he was flat on his back, looking up at the great sky. Call and Bigfoot and Long Bill stood over him—the dog’s collar was still tightly gripped in his hand. He reached up and handed it to Caleb Cobb, who took it, scowling.

“No promotion, Corporal,” Caleb said. “I wanted the dog, not the collar.”

Then he walked away.

“Just be glad you’re back on solid earth,” Bigfoot said.

“I’m glad, all right—real glad,” Gus said.

THE BURNED PRAIRIE RINGED the canyon for five miles — the Rangers had to huddle where they were all day, lest the burnt grass damage their boots.

“Some of our horses might have made it out,” Gus said. “I doubt they all burnt.”

“Buffalo Hump will have taken the ones that lived,” Bigfoot said. “We’ve got to depend on our own feet now. I’m lucky I got big ones.”

“I ain’t got big ones,” Johnny Carthage said, apprehensively. “I ain’t even got but one leg that’s like it ought to be. How far is it we got to walk before we find the Mexicans?”

No one answered his question, because no one knew.

“I expect it’s a far piece yet,” Long Bill said. “Long enough that we’ll get dern thirsty unless we find a creek.”

Most of the men squatted or sat, looking at the blackened plain. In the space of a morning they had been put in serious peril. The thought of water was on every man’s mind. Even with horses it had sometimes been hard to find waterholes. On foot they might stumble for days, or until they dropped, looking for water. Caleb Cobb was still very angry over the loss of his dog. He sat on the edge of the canyon, his legs dangling, saying nothing to nobody. The men were afraid to approach him, and yet they all knew that a decision had to be made soon. They couldn’t just sit where they were, with no food and almost no water—some of the men had canteens, but many didn’t. Many had relied on leather pouches, which had burnt or burst in the fire.

Finally, after three hours, Caleb stood up.

“Well, we’re no worse off than old Coronado,” he said, and started walking west. The men followed slowly, afraid of scorching themselves. The plain was dotted with wands of smoke, drifting upward from smouldering plants. Call was not far behind Caleb— he saw Caleb reach down and pick up a charred jackrabbit that had been crisped coming out of its hole. Caleb pulled a patch of burned skin off the rabbit and ate a few bites of rabbit meat, as he walked. Looking back, he noticed that Call was startled. “We’re going to have to eat anything we can scratch up now, Corporal,” he said. “You better be looking for a rabbit yourself.”

Not ten minutes later, Call saw another dead rabbit. He picked it up by its leg and carried it with him—he did not feel hungry enough to eat a scorched rabbit; not yet. Gus, still weak from his scare, saw him pick it up.

“What’s the jackrabbit for?” he asked.

“It’s to eat,” Call said. “The Colonel ate one. He says we have to eat anything we can find, now. It’s a long way to where we can get grub.”

“I mean to find something better than a damn rabbit,” Gus said. “I might find a deer or an antelope, if I look hard.”

“You better take what you can get!” Bigfoot advised. “I’m looking for a burnt polecat, myself. Polecat meat is tastier than rabbit.”

A little later he came upon five dead horses; evidently they had run into a wall of fire and died together. Call’s little bay was one of them—remembering how the horse had towed him across the Brazos made him sad; even sadder was the fact that the charred ground ended only a hundred yards from where the horses lay. A little more speed, or a shift in the wind, and they might have made it through.“Why are we walking off from this meat?” Shadrach asked. He wore moccasins—the passage through the hot plains had been an ordeal for him. Matilda Roberts half carried him, as it was. But Shadrach had kept his head—most of the men were so shocked by the loss of the horses and the terrible peril of the fire that they merely trudged along, heads down, unable to think ahead.

Caleb Cobb wheeled, and pulled out his big knife.

“You’re right,” he said. “We got horse meat, and it’s already cooked. That’s good, since we lost our cook.”

He looked at the weary troop and smiled.

“It’s every man for himself now, boys,” he said. “Carve off what you can carry, and let’s proceed.”

Call carved off a sizable chunk of haunch—not from his bay, but from another horse. Gus whittled a little on a gelding’s rump, but it was clear his heart was not in the enterprise.

“You better do what the Colonel said,” Call said. “You’ll be begging for mine, in a day or two.”

“I don’t expect I will,” Gus said. “I’ve still got my mind on a deer.”

“What makes you think you could hit a deer, if you saw one?” Call asked. “It’s open out here. A deer could see you before you got anywhere near gunshot range.”

“You worry too much,” Gus said. At the moment, meat was not what was on his mind. Caleb Cobb’s treachery in denying him the promotion was what was on his mind. He had gone over the edge of the canyon and taken the risk. Suppose his belt had slipped off, like the dog’s collar? He would be dead, and all for a dog’s sake. It was poor commanding, in Gus’s view. He had been the only man who volunteered—he ought to have been promoted on that score alone. He had been proud to be a corporal, for awhile, but now it seemed a petty title, considering the hardship that was involved.

While he was thinking of the hardship, an awful thought occurred to him. They were now on the open plain, walking through waist-high grass. The canyon was already several miles behind them.

But where the Comanches were, no one knew. The Indians could be drawing a circle around them, even as they walked. If they fired the grass again, there would be no canyon to hide them. They had no horses, and even horses had not been able to outrun the fire.

“What if they set another fire, Woodrow?” Gus asked. “We’d be fried like that jackrabbit you’re carrying.“Call walked on. What Gus had just said was obviously true. If the Indians fired the grass again they would all be killed. That was such a plain fact that he didn’t see any need to talk about it. Gus would do better to be thinking about grub, or waterholes, it seemed to him.

“Don’t it even worry you?” Gus asked.

“You think too much,” Call said. “You think about the wrong things, too. I thought you wanted to be a Ranger, until you met that girl. Now I guess you’d rather be in the dry goods business.”

Gus was irritated by his friend’s curious way of thinking.

“I wasn’t thinking about no girl,” he informed Call. “I was thinking about being burned up.”

“Rangering means you can die any day,” Call pointed out. “If you don’t want to risk it, you ought to quit.”

Just as he said it an antelope bounded up out of the tall grass, right in front of them. Gus had been carrying his rifle over one shoulder, barrel forward, stock back. By the time he got his gun to his shoulder, the antelope was an astonishing distance away. Gus shot, but the antelope kept running. Call raised his gun, only to find that Gus was right between him and the fleeing animal. By the time he stepped to the side and took aim the antelope was so far away that he didn’t shoot. Shadrach, who had seen the whole thing, was annoyed.