In a Hollow of the Hills

"Well," said the leader, leaning back in his chair after carefully unloosing the buckle of his belt, his eyes on the fire. "We've prospected every yard of outcrop along the Divide, and there ain't the ghost of a silver indication anywhere."

The men had seen their share ups and downs -- having been starved, snowed upon, half drowned, and shot at by road-agents and horse-thieves. Now the money had run out, and in the morning they would shake hands all round and call everything square, and go on their separate ways.

But some of them had seen a strange light down in the hollow, that night -- and it turned out to be not heat lightning, nor swamp fire . . . but real fire: a forest fire --

And there was a house down there, in the hollow, where they had seen a woman peering out a little window . . .