and roar. He forced himself to stand there for a minute to get his
breath and to see just how far the fire had already swept, and how
fast it was spreading.

Even while he stood there, a flaming pine branch came whirling up and
fell avidly upon a buck bush beside him. The bush crackled and
shriveled, a thin spiral of smoke mounting upward into the cloud that
rolled overhead. Jack stood dazed, watching the yellow tongues go
licking up the smaller branches. While he stood looking, the ravaging
flames had devoured leaves and twigs and a dead branch or two, and
left the bush a charred, smoking, dead thing that waved its blackened
stubs of branches impotently in the wind. Alone it had stood, alone it
had died the death of fire.

"Marion Rose!" he shouted abruptly, and began running again. "Marion
Rose!" But the hot wind whipped the words from his lips, and the deep,
sullen roar of the fire drowned his voice. Still calling, he reached
the road that led to Crystal Lake. The wind was hotter, the roar was
deeper and louder and seemed to fill all the world. Hot, black ash
flakes settled thick around him.

Then, all at once, he saw her standing in the middle of the road, a
little farther up the hill. She was staring fascinated at the fire,
her eyes wide like a child's, her face with the rapt look he had seen
when she stood looking down from the peak into the heart of the
forest. And then, when he saw her, Jack could run no more. His knees
bent under him, as though the bone had turned suddenly to soft
gristle, and he tottered weakly when he tried to hurry to her.

"Isn't it wonderful?" she called out when she saw him. Her words came