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She turned inquiringly to Dunn, who had risen to his
feet, but the next moment she caught convulsively at his wrist: a wolf
had just dashed through the underbrush not a dozen yards away, and on
either side of them they could hear the scamper and rustle of hurrying
feet like the outburst of a summer shower. A cold wind arose from the
opposite direction, as if to contest this wild exodus, but it was
followed by a blast of sickening heat. Teresa sank at Dunn's feet in an
agony of terror.
"Don't let them touch me!" she gasped; "keep them off! Tell me, for
God's sake, what has happened!"
He laid his hand firmly on her arm, and lifted her in his turn to her
feet like a child. In that supreme moment of physical danger, his
strength, reason, and manhood returned in their plenitude of power. He
pointed coolly to the trail she had quitted, and said:
"The Carquinez Woods are on fire!"

CHAPTER X.
The nest of the tuneful Burnhams, although in the suburbs of Indian
Spring, was not in ordinary weather and seasons hidden from the longing
eyes of the youth of that settlement.


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