he bearded man turned toward her.

"You think what?" demanded Jolly Roger, stepping half into the room.

"I think," said the woman, "that she died along with the others.
Anyway, Jed Hawkins' witch-woman was burned trying to make for the
lake, and little of her was left."

The man with the lamp made a movement as if to close the door.

"That's all we know," he growled.

"For God's sake--don't!" entreated Jolly Roger, barring the door with
his arm. "Surely there were some who escaped from Cragg's Ridge and
beyond!"

"Mebby a half, mebby less," said the man. "I tell you it burned like
hell, and the worst of it came in the middle of the night with a wind
behind it that blew a hurricane. We've twenty acres cleared here, with
the cabin in the center of it, an' it singed my beard and burned her
hair and scorched our hands, and my pigs died out there from the heat
of it. Mebby it's a place to sleep in for the night you want, stranger?"

"No, I'm going on," said Jolly Roger, the blood in his veins running
with the chill of water. "How far before I come to the end of fire?"

"Ten miles on. It started this side of the next settlement."

Jolly Roger drew back and the door closed, and standing on the railroad
once more he saw the light go out and after that the occasional barking
of the settler's dog grew fainter and fainter behind them.

He felt a great weariness in his bones and body now. With hope struck
down the exhaustion of two nights and a day without sleep seized upon
him and his feet plodded more and more slowly over the uneven ties of
the road. Even in his weariness he fought madly against the thought
that Nada was dead and he repeated the word "impossible--impossible" so
often that it ran in sing-song through his brain. And he could not keep
away from him the white, thin face of the Missioner, who had promised
on his faith In God to care for Nada, and who had passed the settler's
cabin _alone_.

Another two hours they went on and then came the first of the green
timber. Under the shelter of some balsams Jolly Roger found a resting
place and there they waited for the break of dawn. Peter stretched out
and slept. But Jolly Roger sat with his head and shoulders against the
bole of a tree, and not until the light of the moon was driven away by
the darkness that preceded dawn by an hour or two did his eyes close in
restless slumber. He was roused by the wakening twitter of birds and in
the cold water of a creek tha