he blue of the heaven beyond.

A cry came from him, a cry of fear and of horror, for he was looking
upon the fulfilment of Yellow Bird's prediction. He seemed to hear,
whispering softly in his ears, the low, sweet voice of the sorceress, as
on the night when she had told him that if he returned to Cragg's Ridge
he would find a world that had turned black with ruin and that it would
not be there he would ever find Nada.

After that one sobbing cry he tore like a madman dawn into the valley,
traveling swiftly through the muck of fire and under-foot tangle
with Peter fighting behind him. Half an hour later he stood where the
Missioner's cabin had been and he found only a ruin of ash and logs
burned down to the earth. Where the trail had run there was no longer
a trail. A blight, grim and sickening, lay upon the earth that had been
paradise.

Peter heard the choking sound in his master's throat and chest. He, too,
sensed the black shadow of tragedy and cautiously he sniffed the
air, knowing that at last they were home--and yet it was not home.
Instinctively he had faced Cragg's Ridge and Jolly Roger, seeing the
dog's stiffened body pointing toward the break beyond which lay Nada's
old home, felt a thrill of hope leap up within him. Possibly the farther
plain had escaped the scourge of fire. If so, Nada would be there, and
the Missioner--

He started for the break, a mile away. As he came nearer to it his hope
grew less for he could see where the flames had swept in an inundating
sea along Cragg's Ridge. They passed over the meadow where the thick
young jackpines, the red strawberries and the blue violets had been and
Peter heard the strange sob when they came to the little hollow--the
old trysting place where Nada had first given herself into his master's
arms. And there it was that Peter forgot master and caution and sped
swiftly ahead to the break that cut the Ridge in twain.

When Jolly Roger came to that break and ran through it he was staggering
from the mad effort he had made. And then, all at once, the last of his
wind came in a cry of gladness. He swayed against a rock and stood there
staring wild-eyed at what was before him. The world was as black ahead
of him as it was behind. But Jed Hawkins' cabin was untouched! The fire
had crept up to its very door and there it had died.

He went on the remaining hundred yards and before the closed door of
Nada's old home he found Peter standing stiff-legged and strange.