umorous, as something that called for the long shouts of
laughter with which she greeted it. Soon her horse, staggering in its
stride, but still flogged to a gallop, emerged ahead of the heavy smoke
though yet within the haze. The track which led to the Three-mile showed
before her, and she turned her horse on to it from off the main road.
Along its winding course she fled until the hut opened out. The horse
lurched and stumbled in its stride, but mercilessly she used the switch,
until, ten yards from the door, it came down on its knees, and, almost
before she could spring from the saddle, rolled over, ridden to death.

She scarcely glanced at it as she rushed forward to the hut and flung
the door open. On the stretcher Tap lay, his face terribly bruised and
cut, moaning feebly. On one of the stools by the fireplace, sitting
bunched up in a heap with his head on his hands, was Dickson. As she
caught sight of him, she broke out again into her wild laugh.

"I said I'd come for you, Willy--and I've come," she shouted--"come with
lots of friends for you, friends who won't let you get away any more.
They're all round you, dancing and singing as they come along, nearer
and nearer. Don't you hear them? Listen! Can't you smell the smoke in
the air? _She's_ part of it by this time. I've fired the grass and the
bush all round the house. She can't get away. More can you," she added
quickly, as Dickson rose to his feet, and, turning a haggard face
towards her, shrank away to the corner of the hut.

"You devil!" he exclaimed. "You've fired the bush!"

"All over the place," she answered, with her head thrown back and her
mocking laugh ringing through the place. "I told you--I told you, if you
didn't come for me I'd come for you--and I've come. She can't touch you
now; she's burned up like the grass, and the fences, and the trees, and
the house. Oh, it burned so well!"

"It's coming this way," he cried, as his eye caught sight of the rolling
clouds of smoke through the open door.

"Yes; it's coming this way," she answered, with a sudden calm--"it's
coming this way for you--for you and me. Look! Look out there! See that
big boomer there with the red tongues jumping up? Look on the top of it.
Don't you see him? Just on the top he's floating--just as he's been on
all the big smokes. He likes the big smokes. He laughs at me when he's
up there like that. He's been asking for them--asking--asking--asking
so long. Poor little man, they