Jack looked after her, puzzled.  But he had discovered too many contradictory moods and emotions in his own nature to puzzle long over Marion’s sudden changes.  Three months ago he would have called her crazy, or accused her of posing.  Now, however, he understood well enough the spell of that tremendous view.  He had felt it too often and too deeply to grudge her one long feast for her imagination.  So he took her at her word and let her go.

He tidied the small room and sent in another report of the headlong rush of the fire and the direction of the wind that fanned it.  He learned that all Genessee was out, fighting to keep the flames from sweeping down across the valley.  Three hundred men were fighting it, the supervisor told him.  They would check it on the downhill slope, where it would burn more slowly; and if the wind did not change in the night it would probably be brought under control by morning.  After that the supervisor very discreetly inquired after the welfare of the young lady who had telephoned.  Had she found any means of getting back to her camp, or of sending any word?

Jack replied she had not, and that there was no likelihood of her getting away before daylight.  There were too many burning trees and stumps and brush piles on the ground in the burned strip, he explained.  It would bother a man to get down there now.  But he offered to try it, if he might be excused from the station for a few hours.  He said he would be willing to go down and tell them she was all right, or, a little later, he might even take a chance of getting her across.  But it would take some time, he was afraid.

Ross seemed to consider the matter for a minute.  Then, “N—­o, as long as she’s up there, she’d better stay.  We can’t spare you to go.  You might call her to the phone—­”

“I can’t.  She’s off somewhere on the peak, taking in the view,” Jack replied.  “She grabbed my sweater and beat it, an hour or so ago, and I don’t know where she went....  No, I don’t think she tried that.  She knows she couldn’t get there.  She said she wanted to see all she could of it while she had the chance....  What?...  Oh, sure, she’s got sense enough to take care of herself, far as that goes.  Seems to be one of the independent kind....  All right.  I’ll call up if she comes back, and she can talk to you herself.”

But he did not call up the supervisor, for Marion did not come back.  At daybreak, when Jack could no longer fight down his uneasiness, and went to look for her, he found her crouched between two boulders that offered some shelter from the wind without obstructing the view.  She was huddled in his sweater, shivering a little with the dawn chill but scarcely conscious of the fact that she was cold.  Her lids were red-rimmed from staring up too long, at the near stars and down at the remote mountains—­as they looked to be that night.  She seemed rather to resent interruption, but in a few minutes she became human and practical enough to admit that she was hungry, and that she supposed it was time to think about getting home.