, apart from an instinctive tug or two at his moorings, he
submitted to his fate.

But, in mid-evening, something occurred, to change his viewpoint, in
this matter of nonresistance.

The line of fire, climbing the mountain toward him, had encountered a
marshy stretch; where, in normal weather, water stood inches deep.
Despite the drought, there was still enough moisture to stay the
advance of the red line until the dampness could be turned to dust and
tindery vegetation. And, in the meanwhile, after the custom of its
kind, the fire had sought to spread to either side. Stopped at the
granite-outcrop to the right, it had rolled faster through the herbage
to the left.

Thus, by the time the morass was dry enough for the flame to pass it,
there was a great sickle of crawling red fire to the left; which
encircled a whole flank of the mountain and which was moving straight
upward.

Lad knew nothing of this; nor why the advance of the fire's direct line
had been so long checked. Nor did he know, presumably, that this sickle
of flame was girdling the mountain-flank; like a murderous net; hemming
in all live things within the flaming arc and forcing them on in panic,
ahead of its advance. Perhaps he did not even note the mad scurryings
in undergrowth and bramble, in front of the oncoming blaze. But one
thing, very speedily, became apparent to him:--

From out a screen of hazel and witch-elm (almost directly in front of
the place where the truck, that morning, had been loaded) crashed a
right hideous object. By sight and by scent Lad knew the creature for
his olden foe, the giant black bear.

Growling, squealing, a dozen stinging fiery sparks sizzling through his
bushy coat, the bear tore his way from the hedge of thicket and out
into the open. The fire had roused him from his snug lair and had
driven him ahead of it with a myriad hornets of flame, in a crazed
search for safety.

At sight of the formidable monster, Lad realized for the first time the
full extent of his own helplessness. Tethered to a rope which gave him
scarce twenty-five inches of leeway, he was in no fit condition to fend
off the giant's assault.

He wasted no time in futile struggles. All his race's uncanny powers of
resource came rushing to his aid. Without an instant's pause, he
wheeled about; and drove his keen teeth into the rope that bound him to
the post.

Lad did not chew aimlessly at the thick tether; nor throw away one
ounce of useless en