e before he could reply to Penn's impetuous
demand--what had brought him up thither?

"Carl!" he gasped.

"What has happened to Carl?"

"Ben tuck! durned if he hain't! But that ar ain't the wust!"

"What, then, is the worst?" for that seemed bad enough.

"Virginny--Miss Villars!"

"Virginia! what of her?"

"She's down thar! in the fire!"

"Virginia in the fire!"

"She ar,--durned if she ain't! Carl said she war on the mountain, and
wanted me to hurry up and help her or find you; and I'd a done it, but I
couldn't git off till we was runnin' from the fires we'd sot; then I
kinder got scattered a puppus; t'other ones hung on to Carl, though, so
I had to come alone."

Penn interrupted the loose and confused narrative--Virginia: had he
_seen_ her?

"Wal, I reckon I hev! Ye see I war huntin' fur her thar, above the round
rock; fur Carl said,----"

A short, sharp groan broke from the lips of Penn. At first the idea of
Virginia being on the mountain had appeared to him incredible. But at
the mention of the place of rendezvous the truth smote him: she had come
up there with Toby, or in his stead. With spasmodic grip he wrung
Pepperill's arm as if he would have wrung the truth out of him that way.

"You saw her!--where?"

His hoarse voice, his terrible look, bewildered the poor man more and
more.

"I war a tellin' ye! Don't break my arm, and don't look so durned f'erce
at me, and I'll out with the hull story. Ye see, I warn't to blame, now,
no how. They sot the fires; they sot the grove on our way back; and if I
helped any, 'twas cause I had ter. But about _her_. Wal, I begun to the
big rock, and war a-huntin' up along, till the grove got all in a blaze,
and the red limbs begun ter fall, and I see 'twas high time for me to
put. Says I ter myself, 'She hain't hyar; she ar off the mountain and
safe ter hum afore this time, shore!' But jest then I heern a screech;
it sounded right inter the grove, and I run up as clust ter the fire's I
could, and looked, and thar I seen right in the middle on't, amongst the
burnin' trees, a woman's gownd, and then a face: 'twas her face, I
knowed it, fur she hadn't nary bunnit on, and the fire shone on it
bright as lightnin'! But thar war half a acre o' blazin' timber atween
her and me; and besides, I was so struck up all of a heap, I couldn't do
nary thing fur nigh about a minute--I couldn't even holler ter let her
know I war thar. And 'fore I knowed what I war about, durned if