In a Hollow of the Hills | Page 9

the ridge above him, were lost in this fleecy cloud, which at times
seemed to overflow the summits and fall in slow leaps like lazy
cataracts down the mountain-side. Only the range before the ledge was

clear; there the green pines seemed to swell onward and upward in long
mounting billows, until at last they broke against the sky.
In the keen stimulus of the hour and the air Key felt the mountaineer's
longing for action, and scarcely noticed that Collinson had pathetically
brought out his pork barrel to scrape together a few remnants for his
last meal. It was not until he had finished his coffee, and Collinson had
brought up his horse, that a slight sense of shame at his own and his
comrades' selfishness embarrassed his parting with his patient host. He
himself was going to Skinner's to plead for him; he knew that Parker
had left the draft,--he had seen it lying in the bar,--but a new sense of
delicacy kept him from alluding to it now. It was better to leave
Collinson with his own peculiar ideas of the responsibilities of
hospitality unchanged. Key shook his hand warmly, and galloped up
the rocky slope. But when he had finally reached the higher level, and
fancied he could even now see the dust raised by his departing
comrades on their two diverging paths, although he knew that they had
already gone their different ways,--perhaps never to meet again,--his
thoughts and his eyes reverted only to the ruined mill below him and its
lonely occupant.
He could see him quite distinctly in that clear air, still standing before
his door. And then he appeared to make a parting gesture with his hand,
and something like snow fluttered in the air above his head. It was only
the torn fragments of Parker's draft, which this homely gentleman of
the Sierras, standing beside his empty pork barrel, had scattered to the
four winds.

CHAPTER II.
Key's attention was presently directed to something more important to
his present purpose. The keen wind which he had faced in mounting the
grade had changed, and was now blowing at his back. His experience
of forest fires had already taught him that this was too often only the
cold air rushing in to fill the vacuum made by the conflagration, and it

needed not his sensation of an acrid smarting in his eyes, and an
unaccountable dryness in the air which he was now facing, to convince
him that the fire was approaching him. It had evidently traveled faster
than he had expected, or had diverged from its course. He was
disappointed, not because it would oblige him to take another route to
Skinner's, as Collinson had suggested, but for a very different reason.
Ever since his vision of the preceding night, he had resolved to revisit
the hollow and discover the mystery. He had kept his purpose a
secret,--partly because he wished to avoid the jesting remarks of his
companions, but particularly because he wished to go alone, from a
very singular impression that although they had witnessed the incident
he had really seen more than they did. To this was also added the
haunting fear he had felt during the night that this mysterious habitation
and its occupants were in the track of the conflagration. He had not
dared to dwell upon it openly on account of Uncle Dick's evident
responsibility for the origin of the fire; he appeased his conscience with
the reflection that the inmates of the dwelling no doubt had ample
warning in time to escape. But still, he and his companions ought to
have stopped to help them, and then--but here he paused, conscious of
another reason he could scarcely voice then, or even now. Preble Key
had not passed the age of romance, but like other romancists he thought
he had evaded it by treating it practically.
Meantime he had reached the fork where the trail diverged to the right,
and he must take that direction if he wished to make a detour of the
burning woods to reach Skinner's. His momentary indecision
communicated itself to his horse, who halted. Recalled to himself, he
looked down mechanically, when his attention was attracted by an
unfamiliar object lying in the dust of the trail. It was a small slipper--so
small that at first he thought it must have belonged to some child. He
dismounted and picked it up. It was worn and shaped to the foot. It
could not have lain there long, for it was not filled nor discolored by
the wind-blown dust of the trail, as all other adjacent objects were. If it
had been dropped by a passing traveler, that traveler must have passed
Collinson's, going or coming, within the last twelve hours. It was