ake a detour of the
burning woods to reach Skinner's. His momentary indecision
communicated itself to his horse, who halted. Recalled to himself, he
looked down mechanically, when his attention was attracted by an
unfamiliar object lying in the dust of the trail. It was a small
slipper--so small that at first he thought it must have belonged to
some child. He dismounted and picked it up. It was worn and shaped to
the foot. It could not have lain there long, for it was not filled nor
discolored by the wind-blown dust of the trail, as all other adjacent
objects were. If it had been dropped by a passing traveler, that
traveler must have passed Collinson's, going or coming, within the last
twelve hours. It was scarcely possible that the shoe could have
dropped from the foot without the wearer's knowing it, and it must have
been dropped in an urgent flight, or it would have been recovered.
Thus practically Key treated his romance. And having done so, he
instantly wheeled his horse and plunged into the road in the direction
of the fire.

But he was surprised after twenty minutes' riding to find that the
course of the fire had evidently changed. It was growing clearer
before him; the dry heat seemed to come more from the right, in the
direction of the detour he should have taken to Skinner's. This seemed
almost providential, and in keeping with his practical treatment of his
romance, as was also the fact that in all probability the fire had not
yet visited the little hollow which he intended to explore. He knew he
was nearing it now; the locality had been strongly impressed upon him
even in the darkness of the previous evening. He had passed the rocky
ledge; his horse's hoofs no longer rang out clearly; slowly and
perceptibly they grew deadened in the springy mosses, and were finally
lost in the netted grasses and tangled vines that indicated the
vicinity of the densely wooded hollow. Here were already some of the
wider spaced vanguards of that wood; but here, too, a peculiar
circumstance struck him. He was already descending the slight
declivity; but the distance, instead of deepening in leafy shadow, was
actually growing lighter. Here were the outskirting sentinels of the
wood--but the wood itself was gone! He spurred his horse through the
tall arch between the opened columns, and pulled up in amazement.

The wood, indeed, was gone, and the whole hollow filled with the
already black and dead stumps of the u