y Roger's pulse beat a little faster as he
strained his eyes to see ahead. Somewhere near, within a mile or two,
was the first settlement with its sawmill and its bunkhouses, its one
store and its few cabins, with flat mountains of sawdust on one side of
it, and the evergreen forest creeping up to its doors on the other.
Surely they would find life here, where there had been man power to
hold fire back from the clearing. And it was here he might find Nada
and the Missioner, for more than once Father John had preached to the
red-cheeked women and children and the clear-eyed men of the Finnish
community that thrived there.

But as they drew nearer he listened in vain for the bark of a dog, and
his eyes quested as futilely for a point of light in the wide canopy of
gloom. At last, close together, they rounded a curve in the road, and
crossed a small bridge with a creek running below, and McKay knew his
arm should be able to send a stone to what he was seeking ahead. And
then, a minute later, he drew in a great gasping breath of unbelief and
horror.

For the settlement was no longer in the clearing between him and the
rim-glow of the moon. No living tree raised its head against the sky,
no sign of cabin or mill shadowed the earth, and where the store had
been, and the little church with its white-painted cross, was only a
chaos of empty gloom.

He went down, as he had gone to the tie cutter's cabin, and for many
minutes he stared and listened, while Peter seemed to stand without
breathing. Then making a wide megaphone of his hands, he shouted. It
was an alarming thing to do and Peter started as if struck. For there
were only ghosts to answer back and the hollowness of a shriven pit for
the cry to travel in. Nothing was there. Even the great sawdust piles
had shrunk into black scars under the scourge of the fire.

A groaning agony was in the breath of Jolly Roger's lips as he went
back to the railroad and hurried on Death must have come here, death
sudden and swift. And if it had fallen upon the Finnish settlement,
with its strong women and its stronger men, what might it not have done
in the cabin of the little old gray Missioner--and Nada?

For a long time after that he forgot Peter was with him. He forgot
everything but his desire to reach a living thing. At times, where the
road-bed was smooth, he almost ran, and at others he paused for a
little to gather his breath and listen. And it was Peter, in one of
these int