Papa was not much better.  Papa’s khaki suit had come off a pile on the counter of some department store—­the wrong pile.  Papa kept taking off his hat and wiping his bald spot, and hitching his camera case into a different position, so that it made a new set of wrinkles in the middle of his back.  The coat belt strained against its buttons over papa’s prosperous paunch, and he wheezed when he talked.

And down there on the manzanita slope, little flashes of light kept calling, calling, and Jack dared not answer.  One, two—­one, two, three—­could anything in the world be more maddening?

Then all at once a puff of smoke came ballooning up through the trees, down beyond the girl and well to the right of the balsam thicket.  Jack whirled and dove into the station, his angry eyes flashing at the tourists.

“There’s a forest fire started, down the mountain,” he told them harshly.  “You better beat it for Keddie while you can get there!” He slammed the door in their startled faces and laid the pointer on its pivot and swung it toward the smoke.

The smoke was curling up already in an ugly yellowish brown cloud, spreading in long leaps before the wind.  Jack’s hand shook when he reached for the telephone to report the fire.  The chart and his own first-hand knowledge of the mountainside told him that the fire was sweeping down north of Toll-Gate Creek toward the heavily timbered ridge beyond.

Heedless of the presence or absence of the tourists, he snatched the telescope and climbed the rock where he could view the slope where the girl had been.  The smoke was rolling now over the manzanita slope, and he could not pierce its murkiness.  He knew that the slope was not yet afire, but the wind was bearing the flames that way, and the manzanita would burn with a zipping rush once it started.  He knew.  He had stood up there and watched the flames sweep over patches of the shrub.

He rushed back into the station, seized the telephone and called again the main office.

“For the Lord sake, hustle up here and do something!” he shouted aggressively.  “The whole blamed mountain’s afire!” That, of course, was exaggeration, but Jack was scared.

Out again on the rock, he swept the slope beneath him with his telescope.  He could not see anything of the girl, and the swirling smoke filled him with a horror too great for any clear thought.  He climbed down and began running down the pack trail like one gone mad, never stopping to wonder what he could do to save her; never thinking that he would simply be sharing her fate, if what he feared was true—­if the flames swept over that slope.

He stumbled over a root and fell headlong, picked himself up and went on again, taking great leaps, like a scared deer.  She was down there.  And when the fire struck that manzanita it would just go swoosh in every direction at once....  And so he, brave, impulsive young fool that he was, rushed down into it as though he were indeed a god and could hold back the flames until she was safe away from the place.