d-duck darted out of the covert blindly into the opening,
struck against the blasted trunk, fell half stunned near her feet, and
then, recovering, fluttered away. She had scarcely completed another
circuit before the irruption was followed by a whirring bevy of quail, a
flight of jays, and a sudden tumult of wings swept through the wood like
a tornado. She turned inquiringly to Dunn, who had risen to his feet,
but the next moment she caught convulsively at his wrist; a wolf had
just dashed through the underbrush not a dozen yards away, and on either
side of them they could hear the scamper and rustle of hurrying feet
like the outburst of a summer shower. A cold wind arose from the
opposite direction, as if to contest this wild exodus, but it was
followed by a blast of sickening heat. Teresa sank at Dunn's feet in an
agony of terror.

"Don't let them touch me!" she gasped; "keep them off! Tell me, for
God's sake, what has happened!"

He laid his hand firmly on her arm, and lifted her in his turn to
her feet like a child. In that supreme moment of physical danger, his
strength, reason, and manhood returned in their plenitude of power. He
pointed coolly to the trail she had quitted, and said,

"The Carquinez Woods are on fire!"

CHAPTER X

The nest of the tuneful Burnhams, although in the suburbs of Indian
Spring, was not in ordinary weather and seasons hidden from the longing
eyes of the youth of that settlement. That night, however, it was veiled
in the smoke that encompassed the great highway leading to Excelsior.
It is presumed that the Burnham brood had long since folded their
wings, for there was no sign of life nor movement in the house as a
rapidly-driven horse and buggy pulled up before it. Fortunately, the
paternal Burnham was an early bird, in the habit of picking up the first
stirring mining worm, and a resounding knock brought him half dressed
to the street door. He was startled at seeing Father Wynn before him, a
trifle flushed and abstracted.

"Ah ha! up betimes, I see, and ready. No sluggards here--ha, ha!" he
said heartily, slamming the door behind him, and by a series of pokes in
the ribs genially backing his host into his own sitting-room. "I'm up,
too, and am here to see Nellie. She's here, eh--of course?" he added,
darting a quick look at Burnham.

But Mr. Burnham was one of those large, liberal Western husbands who
classified his household under the general title of "woman folk," for