then that she suddenly raised her head and sniffed at the air
from the small window above her through which a slender wisp of smoke
came curling. Smoke! The smell of burning brush, familiar to her, and
yet back here in the woods, unless from a well tended camp-fire, fraught
with perilous meaning. She glanced out of the small opening again. The
purple had grown redder, a dull crimson shot with streaks of blue--smoke
everywhere, endless streamers and tortuous billows sweeping down on the
wings of the wind.

Fire in the woods! She knew the meaning of that. And the reddish purple
was not the sunset but the glow of mighty flames near by, a "crown" fire
in the pines! From the volume of smoke, increasing with every moment, it
seemed that the old tool house in which she was imprisoned must be
directly in the path of the flames. Now thoroughly aware of her possible
fate if she could not release herself she strained her ears, listening,
and now heard distinctly above the sounds nearer at hand a distant
crackling roar and the thud of heavy branches falling. The interior of
the cabin had now grown even dimmer--to a dark redness--and the smoke
came billowing in at the window almost stifling her with its acrid
fumes. Outside the window, when she struggled for freedom, she caught a
glimpse of sparks, flying like meteors past the dim rectangle of her
vision, small ones, larger ones, and then flaming brands which must set
fire to whatsoever they touched.

She was half mad now with terror. She tried to think calmly, because she
knew that unless a miracle happened she would die alone here--the most
horrible of all deaths. And then her eye caught the gleam of something
upon the tool chest in the shadows beyond--the teeth of the cross-cut
saw!

If she could reach it! She fell over purposely on the sacking and with
great difficulty wriggled slowly toward it, inch by inch. Could she
reach it with her wrists? With an effort she squirmed to the chest and
straightened, her back against it, as she had done against the wall, and
then turning, in spite of the increased pressure of her thongs, managed
in some way to get to her knees, feeling for the teeth of the saw with
her fingers behind her. It was not very sharp, but if she could direct
it between her wrists it would do.

In her new thrill of hope, she was hardly conscious of the suffocating
smoke which now filled the cabin, stinging her eyes so that she could
hardly see, or of the heat whi