d Anne to her taciturn
companion, who sat and smoked near by, protecting her paternally by his
presence, but having apparently few words, and those husky, at his
command.

"Fire in the woods."

"Is it not rather late in the season for a forest fire?"

"Well, there it is," answered the captain, declining discussion of the
point in face of obvious fact.

Anne had already questioned him on the subject of light-houses. Would he
like to live in a light-house?

No, he would not.

But they might be pleasant places in summer, with the blue water all
round them: she had often thought she would like to live in one.

Well, _he_ wouldn't.

But why?

Resky places sometimes when the wind blew: give him a good stiddy boat,
now.

After a time they came nearer to the burning forest. Anne could see the
great columns of flame shoot up into the sky; the woods were on fire for
miles. She knew that the birds were flying, dizzy and blinded, before
the terrible conqueror, that the wild-cats were crying like children,
that the small wolves were howling, and that the more timid wood
creatures were cowering behind fallen trunks, their eyes dilated and
ears laid flat in terror. She knew all this because she had often heard
it described, fires miles long in the pine forests being frequent
occurrences in the late summer and early autumn; but she had never
before seen with her own eyes the lurid splendor, as there was no
unbroken stretch of pineries on the Straits. She sat silently watching
the great clouds of red light roll up into the dark sky, and the shower
of sparks higher still. The advance-guard was of lapping tongues that
caught at and curled through the green wood far in front; then came a
wall of clear orange-colored roaring fire, then the steady incandescence
that was consuming the hearts of the great trees, and behind, the long
range of dying fires like coals, only each coal was a tree. It grew
late; she went to her state-room in order that the captain might be
relieved from his duty of guard. But for several hours longer she sat by
her small window, watching the flames, which turned to a long red line
as the steamer's course carried her farther from the shore. She was
thinking of those she had left behind, and of the island; of Rast, and
her own betrothal. The betrothal seemed to her quite natural; they had
always been together in the past, and now they would always be together
in the future; she was content that it was so.