He groped his way forward, calling continually and peering everywhere, till the air grew hot, and he found his progress blocked by a clump of dead, blazing spruces.
He backed off then and veered to the right, going for several hundred yards in this general direction, but following a very crooked course. Despite all his calling and looking, he could find no trace of any human being, and he began to consider the search hopeless. Great sparks and pieces of flaming bark were driving overhead and falling everywhere, starting a hundred fresh fires.
“Guess I’d better see about getting back to the river,” he said to himself. “I’ll get cut off if I’m not careful.”
He wiped his watering eyes and turned in what he thought was the direction of the water. In a few minutes he saw the woods open out before him, and he ran forward. But instead of the river bank, he found himself on the border of Larue’s clearing.
His directions had become confused. But the clearing faced on the slough, at any rate, and he thought he could contrive to cross the mud to the river. The open space was so thick with smoke that he could see the house and barn only by glimpses, and the river was entirely out of view.
He ran out into the open ground, passing close to the barn, and the memory came to him of the last time he had seen that place, on the night of the bee raid. Nobody would ever see it again, for it was certainly doomed to go in less than an hour.
As he passed, it occurred to him to look in, on the chance that any live animal might have been overlooked there. The inside was dusky and smoky and scattered with dry hay. Carl perceived one of their own supers, which they must have overlooked in removing the stolen honey. And then he caught sight of a wisp of a pink dress in a corner.
He rushed toward it. It was a child, cowering down by some empty barrels, and he had no trouble in recognizing the youngest of Larue’s two little girls. He had admired her great black eyes and olive skin already, but now she was grimy, streaked with black and ashes, and frightened almost out of her senses.
“Child!” exclaimed Carl. “How did you get here! Where’s your papa?”
“Sais pas,” whimpered the little one. “Je veux aller.”