d with wide,
straining eyes as the flames rolled onward, every minute drawing nearer
to the landing. The fire now raged behind them, as it was raging on
the mainland. But still they looked shoreward. Even at the eleventh
hour John might arrive. What he would do if he did come they had not
reasoned out. Neither did they realise that nowhere on that lake could
anything live, ringed in by such a fiery furnace. They imagined that
out upon the water they would find refuge from the flames, so John with
the boat was their only means of salvation.

Soon, however, all hope of escape was abandoned. The fire was almost
to the landing, and great sheets of flame were leaping high over the
very spot where the boat was lying. As yet it was untouched, but in a
few minutes it, too, would be swept away.

And as they looked, they beheld the form of a man leaping, so it
appeared to them, right out of that wall of fire. Jess started and
leaned impetuously forward, and stretched out her arms as if to save
him.

"It is John!" she cried. "Oh, he'll be burned! He'll be burned!" She
buried her face in her hands to hide the terrible scene from view.

The next instant she lifted her head at Mrs. Hampton's startled
exclamation. As she looked, she saw that the man on the shore had
reached the boat as the flames were licking around it, and had sent it
reeling into the water. Seizing an oar, he drove the craft out into
the lake, just as the fire swept over the very spot where a minute
before it had been lying. Then he seated himself and began to row
straight for the island.

"He doesn't see us!" Jess exclaimed. "He is heading for the landing."

Acting upon the impulse of excitement, she rose to her feet, and
balancing herself with difficulty upon the rock, she called aloud three
times. As the third call sounded forth, the rower paused, and glanced
around to his right. At once the boat swerved to the left until its
bow pointed straight for the pile of rocks.

"He sees us! He sees us!" Jess cried. "It must be John, and he will
save us!"

"While watching the approaching boat, Mrs. Hampton was listening most
anxiously to the fire sweeping down upon them from the rear. The air
overhead was black with dense volumes of smoke, and already she could
feel the hot breath of the on-coming monster. A more ominous roar than
ever caused her to turn partly around. There stood the trees, gaily
dressed in their robes of green, unaware t