Half a mile farther on they came to a clearing where no stubs of trees stood up like question marks against the sky, and in this clearing was a cabin, a dark blotch that was without light or sound.  But from behind it the dog barked again, and Jolly Roger made quickly toward it.  Here there was no ash under his feet, and he knew that at last he had found an oasis of life in the desolation.  Loudly he knocked with his fist at the cabin door and soon there was a response inside, the heavy movement of a man’s body getting out of bed, and after that the questioning voice of a woman.  He knocked again and the flare of a lighted match illumined the window.  Then came the drawing of a bar at the door and a man stood there in his night attire, a man with a heavy face and bristling beard, and a lamp in his hand.

“I beg your pardon for waking you,” said Jolly Roger, “but I am just down from the north, hoping to find my friends back here and I have seen nothing but destruction and death.  You are the first living soul I have found to ask about them.”

“Where were they?” grunted the man.

“At Cragg’s Ridge.”

“Then God help them,” came the woman’s voice from back in the room.

“Cragg’s Ridge,” said the man, “was a burning hell in the middle of the night.”

Jolly Roger’s fingers dug into the wood at the edge of the door.

“You mean—­”

“A lot of ’em died,” said the man stolidly, as if eager to rid himself of the one who had broken his sleep.  “If it was Mooney, he’s dead.  An’ if it was Robson, or Jake the Swede, or the Adams family—­they’re dead, too.”

“But it wasn’t,” said Jolly Roger, his heart choking between fear and hope.  “It was Father John, the Missioner, and Nada Hawkins, who lived with him—­or with her foster-mother in the Hawkins’ cabin.”

The man shook his head, and turned down the wick of his lamp.

“I dunno about the girl, or the old witch who was her mother,” he said, “but the Missioner made it out safe, and went to the settlements.”

“And no girl was with him?”

“No, there was no girl,” came the woman’s voice again, and Peter jerked up his ears at the creaking of a bed.  “Father John stopped here the second day after the fire had passed, and he said he was gathering up the bones of the dead.  Nada Hawkins wasn’t with him, and he didn’t say who had died and who hadn’t.  But I think—­”

She stopped as the bearded man turned toward her.

“You think what?” demanded Jolly Roger, stepping half into the room.

“I think,” said the woman, “that she died along with the others.  Anyway, Jed Hawkins’ witch-woman was burned trying to make for the lake, and little of her was left.”

The man with the lamp made a movement as if to close the door.

“That’s all we know,” he growled.

“For God’s sake—­don’t!” entreated Jolly Roger, barring the door with his arm.  “Surely there were some who escaped from Cragg’s Ridge and beyond!”