brush. "Run!" he urged, still
pulling at her arm. "We've--got to--swing around it--"

She ran with him, a little of their peril forcing itself upon her
consciousness and making her glance often over her shoulder. And Jack
kept pulling at her arm, helping her to keep her feet when she
stumbled, which she did often, because she would not look where she
was going.

"Don't look--run!" he urged, when another brand fell in a fir near
them and set the whole tree ablaze. The air around them was hot, like
the breath of a furnace.

She did not answer him, but she let him lead her whither he would. And
they came breathless to the rocky outcropping through which the pack
trail wormed its way farther down the hill. There he let her stop, for
he knew that they had passed around the upper edge of the fire, and
were safe unless the wind changed. He helped her upon a high,
flat-topped boulder that overlooked the balsam thicket and manzanita
slope, and together they faced the debauchery of the flames.

Even in the few minutes since Jack had stopped on that rocky knoll the
fire had swept far. It had crossed the Crystal Lake road and was now
eating its way steadily up the timbered hillside beyond. The manzanita
slope where the girl had sat and signalled with her mirror was all
charred and stripped bare of live growth, and the flames were licking
up the edges beyond.

Jack touched her arm and pointed to the place. "You said it couldn't
travel very fast," he reminded her. "Look down there where you sat
fooling with the little mirror."

Marion looked and turned white. "Oh!" she cried. "It wasn't anywhere
near when I started up the road. Oh, do you suppose it has burned down
as far as the cabin? Because there's Kate--can't we go and see?"

"We can't, and when I left the lookout the fire was away up this side
of Toll-Gate, and not spreading down that way. Wind's strong. Come
on--I expect I better beat it back up there. They might phone."

"But I must hunt Kate up! Why, she was all alone there, taking a nap
in the hammock! If it should--"

"It won't," Jack reiterated positively. "I ought to know, oughtn't I?
It's my business to watch fires and see how they're acting, isn't it?"
He saw her still determined, and tried another argument. "Listen here.
It isn't far up to the station. We'll go up there, and I'll phone down
to the office to have the firemen stop and see if she's all right.
They'll have to come right by there, to get at the