He had felt it too often and too deeply to grudge her one long feast for her imagination.

So he took her at her word and let her go.
He tidied the small room and sent in another report of the headlong rush of the fire and the direction of the wind that fanned it.

He learned that all Genessee was out, fighting to keep the flames from sweeping down across the valley.

Three hundred men were fighting it, the supervisor told him.

They would check it on the downhill slope, where it would burn more slowly; and if the wind did not change in the night it would probably be brought under control by morning.