The Flaming Forest

ue sky, the dazzling sun, the girl in between. The pistol dropped from his limp hand, and the weight of his body tottered on the crook of his under-elbow. Mentally and ph

d these things even as his brain wobbled dizzily, and the larger part of the picture began to fade out of his vision. But her face remained to the last. It grew clearer, like a cameo framed in an iris-a beautiful, staring, horrified f

roat. He did not hear the answering cry from the girl as she flung herself, with a quick little prayer for help, on her knees in the soft, white sand beside him. He felt no movement w

ing about, like a lot of sand-fleas in a dance, and just as he got hold of one and reached for another, the first would slip away from him. He began to get the best of them after a time, and he had an uncontrollable desire to say something. But his eyes and h

Water was trickling over his face. Then he heard a voice, close over h

effort he op

heard the voice say, as if coming from a

kly, feeling suddenly a sens

tervals when the dragging operation paused. And then, after a long time, he seemed to hear more than one voice. There were two-sometimes a murmur of them. And odd visions came to him. He seemed to see the girl with shining black hair and dark eyes, and then swiftly she would change into a girl with hair like blaz

eemed. Yet he had no memory of the long fight in the hot sun, or of the river, or of the singing warblers, or of the inquisitive sandpiper that had marked out the line which his enemy's last bullet had traveled. He had entered into a new world in which everyth

ct and a vast distance away. But it crept steadily up through the eternity of darkness, and the nearer it came, the less there was of the blackness of night. From a star it grew into a sun, and with the sun came dawn.

of sunlight now. But where he lay, or sat, or stood-he was not sure what he was doing at that moment-it was shady and deliciously cool. The green of the cedar and spruce and balsam was close about him, inset with the silver and gold of the thickly-leaved birch. He d

ised a hand to his head. His finge

nemy was a woman! Moreover, after she had blown away a part of his head and had him helpless in the sand, she had-in place of finishing him there-dragged him to this cool nook and tied up his wound. It was hard for him to believe, but the pail of water, the moss behind his shoulders, the bandage, and certain visions that wer

ppy to know that the thing was over and he was not dead. If the sandpiper had been a man, he would have called him up to shake hands with him. For if it hadn't been for the bird getting squarely in front of him and g

the edge of the forest and the river. He had been mystified while cringing for his life behind the rock, but he was infinitely more so now. Greater desire he had never had than this which thrilled him in these present minutes of his readjustment-desire to look upon the woman again. And then, all at once, there came back to him a mental flash of the other. He remembered, as if something was coming back to him out of a dream, how the whimsical twistings of his sick brain had made him see two faces instead of one. Yet he knew that the first picture of his mysterio

d dragged him up to the shelter and coolness of the timber. One of his laws of physical care was to keep himself trained down to a hundred and sixty, but he wondered how she ha

nding act of commission. But when he proved to himself that the chief actor in a drama possessed a normal rather than a criminal mind, he found himself in the position of checkmate. It was a thrilling game. And he was frankly puzzled now, until-one after another-he added up the sum total of what had been omitted in this instance of his own p

was dying. But why, when she saw his eyes open a little later, had she cried out her gratitude to God? What had worked

he was not robbed, and therefore robbery was not a motif. "A case of mis

rom her eyes-their beauty, their horror, the way they had looked at him. It was as if a sudden revulsion had come over her; as if, lookin

be just like a woman-and especi

woman had shown both horror and desire to amend when she discovered it, or a too tender-hea

l kit. He was beginning to feel a bit anxious about himself. There were sharp pains back of his eyes. His face was hot, and he was developing an unhealthy appetite for water. It was fever and he knew what fever meant in this sort of thing, when one was alone. He had given up hope of th

in a sort of unity. But his medicine case was important now, and his blankets, and his rifle if he hoped to signal help that might chance to pass on the river. A foot at a time, a yard at a time, he made his way down into the s

sun slipped behind clouds banking in the west. It grew cooler, while within him he was consumed by a burning thirst. He could hear the ripple of running water, the laughter of it among pebbles a few yards away. And the river itself became even more desirable than his medicine case, or his blankets,

balsams and cedars, and frightened by the first low hoots of the owls. There was a crash not far distant, probably a porcupine waddling through brush on his way for a drink; or perhaps it was a thirsty deer, or a bear coming out in the hope of finding a dead fish. Carrigan loved that sort of sound, even when a pendulum was beating back and forth in his head. It was like medicine to him,

k at night; where the poplar buds unfold themselves into leaf before one's very eyes; where strawberries are green in the morning and red in the afternoon; where, a little later, one could read newspaper print until midnight by the glow of the sun-and between

bers grew to half the size of a man's arm, that flowers smothered the land and berries turned it scarlet and black. He had dreaded these days-days of what he called "the great discovery"-the time when a crowded civilization w

arrigan listened, exulting in the thought that the coolness of the wet sand was drawing the fever from him, he heard another sound. At first he tho

the river, and he could not see. But he heard low voices as the paddles di

is coming back," he whispered