showed that he wore eyeglasses. His
complexion was blond, and his eyes, open now only to a slit, might also
have been light in color. There was on his features, indefinably
foreign, the stamp not to say of birth so much as of education. The
man apparently once was used to easy if not gentle ways of life.

"Tell me how it happened," said Doctor Barnes to Gardner, who stood by.

"She can tell you more'n I can," said Wid--"Miss Squires. This ain't
the feller. The real one that I want she used to work with--he was
foreman back East in the shops where she worked. His name was
Dorenwald. She promised to meet him out there at sun-up this morning.
I went out last night to see what I could see. I found this feller.
He was coming down the trail. I waited till he got clost enough--about
forty yard. Onct was enough."

"How many cars did you see?" Doctor Barnes demanded of the sergeant.

"One."

"Gage says he saw two."

"The other may be back in the hills yet."

"Well, here's work! Tell me, Gardner, is there any way those people
can get out on the other side of the Reserve, down the West Fork? You
know the backwater above the little dam, two miles below the big dam?
Most of the timber we intended to float out that way, to the mill at
the little dam. They may have gone on across in there.

"Now, Corporal, leave McQueston and two men here. I want the rest of
you with me--we'll go up in the hills with my car. McQueston, take one
man and go and fix the break in the line three miles down the road.
We'll either come back in my car or send it back to you somehow. The
fire may block us. Get your men ready. March!"

It was anxious enough waiting at the ranch, but the wait might have
been longer. It was not yet eleven o'clock when the two women heard
the hum of the heavily loaded car and saw the men climb out again. It
was Doctor Barnes who came to the cabin.

"It's no use," said he. "The fire has cut off the Tepee Creek trail.
The best fir is gone, and there's no hope of stopping the fire now. If
they took their car up, they must have left it in there--some of them
went back up the trail. They may be over on the West Fork; and if
they've got there, they've got a shorter route down to the dams than
around by the Valley road."

He turned now to Mary Gage more specifically. "We've got a company of
troops down there to guard the big dam. It's safer there than it is
here. What do you think of going back now,