of the timber operation. But, like a tiger confined in
its cage, it had reached out through its bars and claimed victims. Three
stands of farm buildings were in ruins.

Harlan Thornton, sooty and weary, left the fire-line as soon as he knew
that the monster had been subdued. He rode about to reassure the owners
that their losses would be made up by himself and his grandfather.

"Keep away from the lawyers," he counselled the losers. "They'll get
half the money out of you if you hire them. We'll settle after
appraisal."

The men that he talked to seemed sullen in spite of his assurances. They
seemed to be repressing taunts or reproaches merely in consideration of
the fact that he was holding the purse-strings. He noted this demeanor,
and feared to ask questions.

Clare Kavanagh rode with him; she had not left his side, even when he
led his crews into perilous places and entreated her to keep back.

And they rode away together down the long stretch of highway from the
hills to the village. Behind them, against the dusk, glowed the red,
last signals of the dying fires: tree-trunks upraised like smouldering
torches, the timbers of the falling buildings tumbling from their props
and sending up showers of sparks. A pale sliver of new moon made the red
of the fires even more baleful, and the two who rode together looked
back and felt the obsession of something they had never experienced
before.

"I am unhappy, Big Boy," sighed the girl. "We have never come back from
our rides like this."

"It has been a wicked day for both of us, child."

"And you cannot call me child after to-day--so my father says." Her
voice was still plaintive, but there was a hint of the old mischief
there. "I'll be sixteen to-morrow--and I didn't know until to-day that
I'd be so sorry that it is so. Ever since I was ten I've been wishing I
could be eighteen without waiting for the years. But I don't know, now,
Harlan. It seemed as though I'd be getting more out of living. I thought
so." Tears were in her voice now. "It seems as though I'd grown up all
of a sudden; and things aren't beautiful and happy and--and as they used
to be--not any more! I've lost something, Harlan. And if growing up is
losing so much, I don't want to grow up."

He listened indulgently and understood this protest of the child. Their
horses walked slowly side by side, and the tired hounds trailed after
them.

"The grown-ups do lose a lot of things out of life, little gir