us nor observing, and only laughed at his
exuberance, which they believed was going to die a violent death when
Jack had spent a night or two there alone.

"Is _that_ all I have to do?" he demanded, when he had located a half
dozen imaginary fires.

"That's all you get paid for doing, but that ain't all you have to do,
by a long shot!" the fireman retorted significantly. But he would not
explain until he had packed his bed on the horse that had brought up
Jack's bedding and the fresh supplies, and was ready to go down the
mountain with Hank. Then he looked at Jack pityingly.

"Well--you sure have got my sympathy, kid. I wouldn't stay here
another month for a thousand dollars. You've got your work cut out for
you, just to keep from going crazy. So long."

Jack stood on a little jutting pinnacle of rock and watched them out
of sight. He thought the great crater behind the station looked like a
crude, unfinished cup of clay and rocks; and that Crystal Lake,
reflecting the craggy slope from the deeps below, was like blueing in
the bottom of the cup. He picked up a rock the size of his fist and
drew back his arm for the throw, remembered what the supervisor had
told him about throwing stones into the lake, and dropped the rock
guiltily. It was queer how a fellow wanted to roll a rock down and
shatter that unearthly blue mirror into a million ripples.

He looked away to the northwest, where Mount Lassen sent a lazy column
of thin, grayish vapor trailing high into the air, and thought how
little he had expected to see this much-talked-of volcano; how
completely and irrevocably the past two days had changed his life.
Why, this was only Tuesday! Day before yesterday he had been whooping
along the beach at Venice, wading out and diving under the breakers
just as they combed for the booming lunge against the sand cluttered
with humanity at play. He had blandly expected to go on playing there
whenever the mood and the bunch invited. Night before last he had
danced--and he had drunk much wine, and had made impulsive love to a
girl he had never seen in his life until just before he had held her
in his arms as they went swaying and gliding and dipping together
across the polished floor, carefree as the gulls outside on the sand.
Night before last he had driven home--but he winced there, and pulled
his thoughts back from that drive.

Here were no girls to listen to foolish speeches; no wine, no music,
no boom of breakers, no gul