“Oh, we’ll get out, all right,” said he, again.

And then he turned to her in frank and unexcited inquiry.  To her increased disgust the sobs of growing fear convulsed her throat.  She fought them back and listened to his question.

“You know more about woods-fires than I do,” he said evenly.  “Better tell me what to do, eh?”

This confession of his ignorance strengthened her growing confidence in him instead of weakening it.  The fact that he could ask advice so calmly made her think that, probably, he would be calm in taking it if she could offer it.  It steadied her and helped her think.  And then she saw him spring, and, actually with a smile, strike in the air above her head, diverting from its downward path which would have landed it upon her, a flaming fragment of pine-top fully five feet long.  He actually laughed.

“Like handball,” he said cheerily.  “Don’t worry.  I won’t let anything fall on you.  You just—­think!”

Her panic, now, had vanished as by magic.  Instantly she really ceased to worry.  He would not let fire fall on her.  He would get her out of that.  She was certain of it.  She could think—­calmly and with care.

But she could not think of a way out—­at least she could not think of a way out for her.  Barefooted as she was, she scarcely could expect to find, even in her strong young body, strength enough to endure the pain of treading, as she would be forced to if she made a dash, on an almost unbroken bed of glowing coals and smouldering moss ten yards in width.  He, with his heavy boots, might manage it.  Therefore there was hope for him; but for her to try it would be madness.

Had he been a sturdy mountaineer, she wofully reflected—­having found a detail of lowland inferiority which, she was quite certain, would not be dispelled as had some others—­he might, in such a desperate case, have summoned strength to “tote” her through, although she scarcely thought Joe Lorey, the best man whom she knew, could really do it; still there would have been the possibility.  But no weak-muscled “foreigner,” pap-nurtured in the lowlands, could, she knew, of course, accomplish such a feat.  It was fine to know things, as he did, but muscle was what counted now!  In queer, impersonal reflection, born, doubtless, of a dumb hysteria, she reflected bitterly upon the healthy weight of her own mountain-nourished person.

“If I was only like them triflin’ bluegrass gals Joe tells about,” she thought, “made up of nothin’ or a little less, it wouldn’t be no trick to tote me outen this; but dellaw!  I’m just as much as that there ox of mine feels right to carry when I got a couple bags o’ grist on, back an’ front.”

She looked around the ring of fire, dull-eyed, disheartened.  “Ain’t no use,” said she, aloud.

He seemed to almost lose his temper.  “Use?” said he, “of course there’s use!  You tell me where the best chance is and we’ll fight out, all right.”