adily over the hills through the hot,
loose-lying ashes. In all the world it seemed that not man nor beast
nor bird was alive. The top of the earth was one grey ruin, draped
with the little sworls of dust and ashes that the playful wind sent
drifting up into their mouths and eyes.

They dared not ride faster than a walk, for the ashes had blown level
over holes and traps of all sorts in which a galloping horse would
surely break his leg. Nor would it have been safe to put the horses to
any rapid expenditure of energy. The little that was left in them must
be doled out to the very last ounce. For they did not yet know what
lay between them and French Village and the lake. If the fire had not
reached the lake during the night then it was always a possibility
that, with this fresh morning wind, a new fire might spring up from
the ashes of the old and place an impassable barrier between them and
the water.

When this thought came to them, as it must, they involuntarily
quickened their pace. The impulse was to make one wild dash for the
lake. But they knew that it would be nothing short of madness. They
must go slowly and carefully, enduring the torture with what fortitude
they could.

The story which the Bishop had heard from the lips of the dying man
had stirred him profoundly. He now knew definitely, what yesterday he
had suspected, that men had been sent into the hills by the railroad
people to set fire to the forests, thereby driving the people out of
that part of the country which the railroad wished to possess. He was
moved to anger by the knowledge, but he knew that he must try to drive
that knowledge back into the deepest recess of his mind; must try to
hide it even from himself, lest in some unguarded moment, some time of
stress and mental conflict, he should by word or look, by a gesture or
even by an omission, reveal even his consciousness of that knowledge.
Now he knew that the situation which last night he had thought to meet
in French Village would almost certainly confront him there this
morning, if indeed he ever succeeded in reaching there. And he must be
doubly on his guard lest the things which he might learn to-day should
in his mind confuse themselves with what he had last night learned
under the seal of the confessional.

Through all the night Ruth Lansing had been hearing the words of
that last cry of the dying man. She did not know how near they
came to her. She did not know that Jeffrey Whiting