From the column of smoke now plainly visible in the growing morning light he tried to locate the scene of the conflagration.

It was evidently not a fire advancing regularly from the outer skirt of the wood, communicated to it from the Divide; it was a local outburst near its centre.

It was not in the direction of his cabin in the tree.

There was no immediate danger to Teresa, unless fear drove her beyond the confines of the wood into the hands of those who might recognize her.

The screaming of jays and ravens above his head quickened his speed, as it heralded the rapid advance of the flames; and the unexpected apparition of a bounding body, flattened and flying over the yellow plain, told him that even the secure retreat of the mountain wild-cat had been invaded.