go out to her immediately. He stood staring down the hill with his
eyebrows pinched together. Now and then he lifted his hand
unconsciously and pushed his heavy thatch of hair straight back from
his forehead, where it began at once to lie wavy as of old. He was
feeling again the personal sense of tragedy and loss in that fire;
cursing again his helplessness to check it or turn it aside from that
beautiful stretch of timber over toward Genessee.

Now the shadows had crept down the slope again to where the fire glow
beat them back while it crisped the balsam thicket. Behind him the
sun, sinking low over the crest of a far-off ridge, sent flaming
banners across the smoke cloud. The sky above was all curdled with
gold and crimson, while the smoke cloud below was a turgid black shot
through with sparks and tongues of flame.

Where were the fire-fighters, that they did not check the mad race of
flames before they crossed that canyon? It seemed to Jack that never
had a fire burned with so headlong a rush. Then his eyes went to the
blackened manzanita slope where Marion had been idling, and he
shivered at what might have happened down there. To comfort himself
with the sight of her safe and serene, he turned and went out, meaning
to go up where she was.

She was still sitting on the rock, gazing down the mountain, her face
sober. Her hat was off, and the wind was blowing the short strands of
her hair around her face. She was leaning back a little, braced by a
hand upon the rock. She looked a goddess of the mountain tops, Jack
thought. He stood there staring up at her, just as he had stared down
at her when she had stood looking into the lake. Did she feel as he
felt about the woods and mountains? he wondered. She seemed rather