Its obliteration was so great no life had adventured back into the desolated country, though the conflagration must have passed in the preceding autumn, many months ago.

The burned country was a grave and the nearest edge of it, judged from the sepulchral stillness of the night, was many miles away.
For the first time came the horror of the thought that in such a fire as this people must have died.

It had swept upon them like a tidal wave, galloping the forests with the speed of a race horse, with only this thin line of rail leading to the freedom of life outside.

In places only a miracle could have made escape possible.

And here, where Nada had lived, with the pitch-wood forests crowding close, the fire must have burned most fiercely.