his horse as they came abreast of it, and his
voice broke with painful sharpness upon the deathly stillness of the
world about them.

"It's gone," he cried, with a note of deep distress and grievous
disappointment. "It's burnt right out to a shell. Say----"

"What's gone?"

The older man glanced round. Then his troubled eyes sought the charred
remains of the splendid pines once more.

"Why--the post." Then he pointed amongst the charred skeletons. "Get
a peek right in ther'. See, Jeff. Them walls; them fallen logs.
Burnt. Burnt right through to the heart of 'em. That's all that's
left of the home that sheltered me for the first sixteen years of my
life. Say, I'm sick--sick to death."

Jeff left his packhorse and moved forward amongst the blackened limbs.
The reek of burnt wood hung heavily upon the air. He threaded his way
carefully toward the charred remains of an extensive abode, now plainly
visible amongst the black tree trunks.

It was a wide rambling structure, and, though burnt to cinders, much of
its general shape, and the great logs which had formed its walls, still
remained to testify to all it had been under the hands of those who had
originally wrought there.

Jeff glanced back at the man he had left behind. He had not stirred.
He sat in the saddle just gazing at the destruction. That was all. So
he turned again to the ruins, and, dismounting, he proceeded on foot to
explore.

* * * * * *

They were eyes wide with repulsion and a certain horror that gazed down
upon the object at Jeff's feet. It was the rotting, charred remains of
a human figure. It was beyond recognition, except in so far as its
human identity was concerned. The clothes were gone. The flesh was
seared and shriveled. The process of incineration was almost complete.

After a few fascinated moments his eyes searched further along the
remains of the old post wall. Another figure lay sprawling on the
ground. Near by it a heavy pistol had fallen wide. A rifle, too, lay
across the second body.

Every detail was swiftly absorbed by the man's keenly active brain. He
stood back from the gutted precincts and gazed speculatively upon the
picture. His imagination reconstructed something of what he believed
must have occurred in the deep heart of these wrecked woodlands.

What of the fire? How had it been started? Was it the work of an
incendiary? Had the heat of the summer sun wroug