Without apparently heeding this potential ceremony, Ruth remained leaning against the doorway, looking upon the night, the bulk of whose profundity and blackness seemed to be gathered below him. The vault above was serene and tranquil, with a few large far-spaced stars; the abyss beneath, untroubled by sight or sound. Stepping out upon the ledge, he leaned far over the shelf that sustained their cabin, and listened. A faint rhythmical roll, rising and falling in long undulations against the invisible horizon, to his accustomed ears told him the wind was blowing among the pines in the valley. Yet, mingling with this familiar sound, his ear, now morbidly acute, seemed to detect a stranger inarticulate murmur, as of confused and excited voices, swelling up from the mysterious depths to the stars above, and again swallowed up in the gulfs of silence below. He was roused from a consideration of this phenomenon by a faint glow towards the east, which at last brightened, until the dark outline of the distant walls of the valley stood out against the sky. Were his other senses participating in the delusion of his ears? for with the brightening light came the faint odor of burning timber. His face grew anxious as he gazed. At last he rose, and re-entered the cabin. His eyes fell upon the faint chalk-mark, and, taking his soft felt hat from his head, with a few practical sweeps of the brim he brushed away the ominous record of their late estrangement. Going to the bed whereon Rand lay stretched, open-eyed, he would have laid his hand upon his arm lightly; but the brother's fingers sought and clasped his own. “Get up,” he said quietly; “there's a strange fire in the Canyon head that I can't make out.” Rand slowly clambered from his shelf, and hand in hand the brothers stood upon the ledge. “It's a right smart chance beyond the Ferry, and a piece beyond the Mill, too,” said Rand, shading his eyes with his hand, from force of habit. “It's in the woods where--” He would have added where he met Mornie; but it was a point of honor with the twins, after reconciliation, not to allude to any topic of their recent disagreement. Ruth dropped his brother's hand. “It doesn't smell like the woods,” he said slowly. “Smell!” repeated Rand incredulously. “Why, it's twenty miles in a bee-line yonder. Smell, indeed!” Ruth was silent, but presently fell to listening again with his former abstraction. “You don't hear anything, do you?” he asked after a pause. “It's blowin' in the pines on the river,” said Rand shortly. “You don't hear anything else?” “No.” “Nothing like--like--like--” Rand, who had been listening with an intensity that distorted the left side of his face, interrupted him impatiently. “Like what?” “Like a woman sobbin'?” “Ruth,” said Rand, suddenly looking up in his brother's face, “what's gone of you?” Ruth laughed. “The fire's out,” he said, abruptly re-entering the cabin. “I'm goin' to turn in.”