Angry and hurt though he was, he could not contemplate the thought of letting her go down there into that blackened waste with the thick sprinkling of bonfires where stumps were all ablaze, fallen tangles of brush were smoldering, and dead trees flared like giant torches or sent down great blazing branches.

She might get through without disaster, but it would be by a miracle of good luck.

Even a man would hesitate to attempt the feat of working his way across the burning strip.
There was no other place where she could go.

She could not go alone, in the dark, down the mountain to any of the lower ranches.

She would get lost.