her feet tripped over a tangled mesh of twigs and she went down. Beyond the fence the canvas began to distend. It rounded full; like a waking leviathan it stretched, squirmed. Thornton, running with the flow to help Mose at the nozzle, passed without seeing her. Then Stratton came. He had hurried from his lodge at the first hint of smoke; he had learned, in a word from Mose, where to look for her, and he discovered her. He put his shoulder to an upright and wrenched it away. He grasped the rails,—his hands blistered,—and flung them down. He bent to lift her, shielding her with his body, but at the same time a burning sapling, looped in the slashing, sprang, released like an unstrung bow, and struck the back of his head. He pitched, groaning, face downward. The smoke thinned but the brush pile became a roaring furnace. He got to his knees, groped for her, and half dragged, half carried her out of that fiery lane. Her dress was burning; he smothered the flames, turning her on the meadow grass; he strangled more persistent vipers with his arms. But the pain from the blow was very great. He saw things all red, all black; they mixed in a blur. He stretched himself on the earth a breathing space and closed his eyes. "Great God," he muttered, "Great God, she must not have inhaled fire." And the words begun in imprecation ended like a prayer. When he recovered enough to see, he found her sitting up, dazed a little, trembling, but watching Thornton and Mose, who at last had turned the flood on the blazing brush pile. The spray of it drifted over them, and presently a cloud of steam. With Stratton’s help she was able to rise, and they went up through the field towards the cabin. Sometimes he put his arm under her shoulders, holding her on her feet; and sometimes he stumbled apart and stood for an instant with his eyes closed, while his teeth gripped the nether lip. Neither spoke until they reached the balcony steps. Then they stopped and she looked back at the men with the hose. "They will save the trees," she said. "See, the fire is under control; they have saved the trees." But Stratton was looking at her. The coolness and mockery had dropped from him in that hour, like a broken mask. The emotions and passions kept in leash through months fought in his face. He saw her rock unsteadily again on her feet, and new strength surged to his arms. "Damn the trees," he answered, and lifted her and carried her up to the door. "Damn Slocum and his pipe; damn—myself." She did not hear him. Her body had yielded to complete collapse. He watched her still face, cradled in the curve of his arm, and once while he crossed the room he bent his lips to her cheek. But something, that indefinable something that had baffled him on the glacier, seemed to push him back. It was as though her white spirit cried "no," and again his own soul shrank.