hts and his eyes reverted only to the ruined mill
below him and its lonely occupant.

He could see him quite distinctly in that clear air, still standing
before his door. And then he appeared to make a parting gesture with
his hand, and something like snow fluttered in the air above his head.
It was only the torn fragments of Parker's draft, which this homely
gentleman of the Sierras, standing beside his empty pork barrel, had
scattered to the four winds.

CHAPTER II.

Key's attention was presently directed to something more important to
his present purpose. The keen wind which he had faced in mounting the
grade had changed, and was now blowing at his back. His experience of
forest fires had already taught him that this was too often only the
cold air rushing in to fill the vacuum made by the conflagration, and
it needed not his sensation of an acrid smarting in his eyes, and an
unaccountable dryness in the air which he was now facing, to convince
him that the fire was approaching him. It had evidently traveled
faster than he had expected, or had diverged from its course. He was
disappointed, not because it would oblige him to take another route to
Skinner's, as Collinson had suggested, but for a very different reason.
Ever since his vision of the preceding night, he had resolved to
revisit the hollow and discover the mystery. He had kept his purpose a
secret,--partly because he wished to avoid the jesting remarks of his
companions, but particularly because he wished to go alone, from a very
singular impression that although they had witnessed the incident he
had really seen more than they did. To this was also added the
haunting fear he had felt during the night that this mysterious
habitation and its occupants were in the track of the conflagration.
He had not dared to dwell upon it openly on account of Uncle Dick's
evident responsibility for the origin of the fire; he appeased his
conscience with the reflection that the inmates of the dwelling no
doubt had ample warning in time to escape. But still, he and his
companions ought to have stopped to help them, and then--but here he
paused, conscious of another reason he could scarcely voice then, or
even now. Preble Key had not passed the age of romance, but like other
romancists he thought he had evaded it by treating it practically.

Meantime he had reached the fork where the trail diverged to the right,
and he must take that direction if he wished to m