A short run down the road brought her to a horrified
stand, for there before her was another wall of flame. An
arm of the main conflagration had shot out a half mile south
of its parent to embrace this tiny strip of road in its
implacable clutches.
Jane knew that it was useless again to attempt to force her
way through the undergrowth.
She had tried it once, and failed. Now she realized that it
would be but a matter of minutes ere the whole space between
the north and the south would be a seething mass of
billowing flames.
Calmly the girl kneeled down in the dust of the roadway
and prayed for strength to meet her fate bravely, and for the
delivery of her father and her friends from death.
Suddenly she heard her name being called aloud through
the forest:
"Jane! Jane Porter!" It rang strong and clear, but in a
strange voice.
"Here!" she called in reply. "Here! In the roadway!"
Then through the branches of the trees she saw a figure
swinging with the speed of a squirrel.
A veering of the wind blew a cloud of smoke about them
and she could no longer see the man who was speeding toward
her, but suddenly she felt a great arm about her. Then
she was lifted up, and she felt the rushing of the wind and
the occasional brush of a branch as she was borne along.
She opened her eyes.
Far below her lay the undergrowth and the hard earth.
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