And then in another instant it seemed that his heart choked up, like a fist suddenly tightened, and stopped its beating.
Reaching away from him, miles upon miles of it, east, west and south--was a dead and char-stricken world.
Up to the foot of the ridge itself had come the devastation of flame, and where it had swept, months ago, there was now no sign of the glorious spring that lay behind him.
He looked for Indian Tom's swamp, and where it had been there was no longer a swamp but a stricken chaos of ten thousand black stubs, the shriven corpses of the spruce and cedar and jackpines out of which the wolves had howled at night.
He looked for the timber on Sucker Creek where the little old Missioner's cabin lay, and where he had dreamed that Nada would be waiting for him.

And he saw no timber there but only the littleness and emptiness of a blackened world.
And then he looked to Cragg's Ridge, and along the bald crest of it, naked as death, he saw blackened stubs pointing skyward, painting desolation against the blue of the heaven beyond.
A cry came from him, a cry of fear and of horror, for he was looking upon the fulfilment of Yellow Bird's prediction.

He seemed to hear, whispering softly in his ears, the low, sweet voice of the sorceress, as on the night when she had told him that if he returned to Cragg's Ridge he would find a world that had turned black with ruin and that it would not be there he would ever find Nada.
After that one sobbing cry he tore like a madman dawn into the valley, traveling swiftly through the muck of fire and under-foot tangle with Peter fighting behind him.

Half an hour later he stood where the Missioner's cabin had been and he found only a ruin of ash and logs burned down to the earth.

Where the trail had run there was no longer a trail.