She turned inquiringly to Dunn, who had risen to his feet, but the next moment she caught convulsively at his wrist: a wolf had just dashed through the underbrush not a dozen yards away, and on either side of them they could hear the scamper and rustle of hurrying feet like the outburst of a summer shower.

A cold wind arose from the opposite direction, as if to contest this wild exodus, but it was followed by a blast of sickening heat.

Teresa sank at Dunn's feet in an agony of terror.
"Don't let them touch me!" she gasped; "keep them off! Tell me, for God's sake, what has happened!" He laid his hand firmly on her arm, and lifted her in his turn to her feet like a child.

In that supreme moment of physical danger, his strength, reason, and manhood returned in their plenitude of power.

He pointed coolly to the trail she had quitted, and said: "The Carquinez Woods are on fire!".