It couldn't happen.

God wouldn't let her die like that!" He stopped, and stared into the moon-broken gloom on his left.

Something was there, fifty feet away, that drew him down through the muck which lay knee deep in the right-of-way ditch.

It was what was left of the cutter's cabin, a clutter of burned logs, a wind scattered heap of ash.

Even there, within arm's reach of the railroad, there had been no salvation from the fire.
He waded again through the muck of the ditch, and went on.