"Yes, and a rather pretty one," said the pleasant voice
meditatively.

"That's the way they'd build that sort of thing, of course. It's
lucky ye had to satisfy yourself with looking. Gosh! I feel creepy
yet, thinking of it! What are ye looking back for now like Lot's
wife? Blamed if I don't think that face bewitched ye."

"I was only thinking about that fire you started," returned the
other quietly. "I don't see it now."

"Well--if you did?"

"I was wondering whether it could reach that hollow."

"I reckon that hollow could take care of any casual nat'rel fire
that came boomin' along, and go two better every time! Why, I
don't believe there was any fire; it was all a piece of that
infernal ignis fatuus phantasmagoriana that was played upon us down
there!"

With the laugh that followed they started forward again, relapsing
into the silence of tired men at the end of a long journey. Even
their few remarks were interjectional, or reminiscent of topics
whose freshness had been exhausted with the day. The gaining light
which seemed to come from the ground about them rather than from
the still, overcast sky above, defined their individuality more
distinctly. The man who had first spoken, and who seemed to be
their leader, wore the virgin unshaven beard, mustache, and flowing
hair of the Californian pioneer, and might have been the eldest;