While he stood looking, the ravaging flames had devoured leaves and twigs and a dead branch or two, and left the bush a charred, smoking, dead thing that waved its blackened stubs of branches impotently in the wind.

Alone it had stood, alone it had died the death of fire.
"Marion Rose!" he shouted abruptly, and began running again.

"Marion Rose!" But the hot wind whipped the words from his lips, and the deep, sullen roar of the fire drowned his voice.

Still calling, he reached the road that led to Crystal Lake.

The wind was hotter, the roar was deeper and louder and seemed to fill all the world.