to the automobile's
retreating murmur. A curiosity, a sort of detached suspense, rooted
them to the spot.

"Ah, he's snapped them on!" Janet said, almost with relief.

The powerful beam of the headlights had suddenly blazed forth. Either
feeling that he was safe from Weir's gun or realizing that he was on
the verge of a graver danger, Sorenson had chosen to make the light.
He was going at headlong speed; even where they watched, Steele and
Janet perceived that,--and only his fear of the peril behind which
made him heedless of the difficulties in front could account for that
reckless pace.

The light leaped out into the night. Something else too seemed to
spring forth within the circle of the glow, dark, sudden, imminent,
rushing at the machine. A frantic jerk this way and that of the beam
showed the driver's mad effort to avoid the towering wall of granite.
Then a scream rang back to the man and girl before the cabin. Followed
instantly a crash, an extinguishment of the light, darkness, silence,
and finally a thin quivering flame at the base of the ledge, delicate
and blue, like a dancing chimera.

Janet's hand reached out and closed in Steele Weir's, and he covered
it with his other hand.

"Oh, how terrible!" she gasped. "Did you see? The rock seemed to smite
him!"

"Yes."

"He must be dead."

"You remain here and I'll go find out."

He led her into the cabin and to a stool by the table, where resting
her elbows on the board she pressed her hands over her eyes as if to
blot out the sight she had just witnessed. After all she had suffered,
the climax of this dreadful spectacle left her unnerved, weak,
shuddering.

"Don't stay long," she whispered. "Come back as quick as you can. This
cabin, this whole spot in the mountains, is awful. I can almost feel
him hovering over me."

"You mustn't permit such thoughts." He gave her shoulder an
encouraging pat. "It will take but a few minutes to see if he's still
alive and then we'll start home. You've been the bravest girl going
and will continue to be, I know. Everything is over; nothing can
happen to you now."

Weir went out. He perceived that the wrecked car was fully afire by
this time, its flames illuminating the granite ledge and the ground
about. Evidently the machine's fuel tank had been smashed under the
impact and the gasoline had escaped, preventing an explosion but
fiercely feeding the blaze. He ran towards the place.

At first he did not find Sore