e foot of Armytage's farm
even to the cedar swamp; he was feeling that the slight wind was blowing
in a fair direction for the burning of this most inflammable fuel, and
consequently the endangering of his property on the creek. A point or
two from the east of south it blew; proved by the strong resinous smell
wafted towards the landing cove.

'Bob, you're forgetting the trout and the tackle,' as he jumped ashore,
helped her out, and hurried up the beaten path beside the beaver meadow.
'Never mind; I want to see Holt,' was his answer. 'If any man can help,
'tis he.'

'Then there is danger!' She still thought of the Daisy Burn people.
Before they reached the house, they met Mr. Holt and half-a-dozen
Indians.

'We must burn a patch of brushwood, to deprive the fire of fuel,' said
the former. 'These Indians have done the like on the prairies westward.
It is worth trying, at all events.'

'Go up to my mother, Linda; there's nothing to be much alarmed for as
yet; I hope this plan of Holt's may stop its progress. I'll be at the
house as soon as I can, tell her;' and he ran after the others, down to
the mouth of the creek, where a strip of alluvial land, covered with
bushes and rank grass, interrupted the belt of firs and cedars. Calling
in fire as an ally against itself seemed to Robert very perilous; but
the calm Indians, accustomed to wilderness exigencies, set about the
protective burning at once. The flame easily ran through the dry
brushwood; it was kept within bounds by cutting down the shrubs where it
might spread farther than was desirable. Soon a broad blackened belt lay
beside the creek, containing nothing upon which the fire could fasten.
Axes were at work to widen it still further.

'The wind has risen very much, Holt,' said Robert, as they felt hot
currents of air sweep past them.

'Just the result of the rarified atmosphere over the flames,' he
answered. They spoke little: the impending risk was too awful. For once,
the white man submitted himself to the guidance of the red. To prevent
the fire from crossing the creek was the great object. The water itself,
perhaps a hundred feet wide, would be an ineffectual barrier; such
fierce flame would overleap it. Therefore the Indians had burned
the left bank, and now proceeded to burn the right. Indomitably
self-possessed, cool and silent, they did precisely what met the
emergency, without flurry or confusion.

[Illustration: THE FOREST ON FIRE.]

All this