Gypsy gave a great gulp; there was such a pain in her throat it seemed as if it would strangle her. But should she leave Joy, crippled and helpless, to die alone in this horrible place? Should she do it? No, it was through her careless fault that they had been brought into it. She would stay with Joy.
"I don't see as we can do anything," she said, raising her head.
"Shall we be burned to death?" shrieked Joy. "Gypsy, Gypsy, shall we be burned to death?"
A huge, hot branch flew into the gully while she spoke, hissing as the other had done, into the pool. The glare shot deeper and redder into the forest, and the great trees writhed in the flames like human things.
The two girls caught each other's hands. To die—to die so horribly! One moment to be sitting there, well and strong, so full of warm, young life; the next to lie buried in a hideous tangle of fallen, flaming trunks, their bodies consuming to a little heap of ashes that the wind would blow away to-morrow morning; their souls—where?
"I wish I'd said my prayers every day," sobbed Joy, weakly. "I wish I'd been a good girl!"
"Let's say them now, Joy. Let's ask Him to stop the fire. If He can't, maybe He'll let us go to heaven anyway."
So Gypsy knelt down on the rocks that were becoming hot now to the touch, and began the first words that came to her:—"Our Father which art in Heaven," and faltered in them, sobbing, and began again, and went through somehow to the end.
After that, they were still a moment.
"Joy," said Gypsy then, faintly, "I've been real ugly to you since you've been at our house."