He acted, then, without further question. Hastily throwing the loop of
his gun over his shoulder, he crooked one arm beneath her
much-astonished knees, clasped another tight about her waist, and
started for the fire with a determined spring.

"No, no; not there!" she screamed, astonished, terrified, and yet,
withal, delighted by the unexpected hardness of the muscles in the arms
which held her, the unexpected spring in the apparently not overburdened
limbs which bore them up, the unexpected nerve, determination of the
man's initiative.

This "foreigner," it seemed, was not so weak, was not so namby-pamby as
his class had been described to be. She did not struggle in the circling
arms, she only made an explanation.

"That's hard wood, burnin' there," said she. "Burnin' hard wood's harder
to break through an' hotter, too. Try some place where it's pine.... But
you can't never do it!"

"Where?" said he. "Show me! You know, I don't."

"Well--over thar," she said, and indicated, with a pointing hand, the
place in the encircling conflagration where passage seemed least
hopeless.

At that moment fire blazed high there, but her knowing eye told her that
it was largely flaring needles, brittle twigs, and easily dissipated
cones which fed it.