CHAPTER IV.

THE FOREST FIRE.

Though we had come off so happily from our first encounter with man,
none the less we had no desire to see him again. On the contrary, we
determined to keep as far away from him as possible. For my part, I
confess that thoughts of him were always with me, and every thought made
the skin crawl up my back.

Nor was I the only one of the family who was nervous. Father and mother
had become so changed that they were gruff and bad-tempered; and all the
pleasure and light-heartedness seemed to have gone out of our long
rambles. There was no more romping and rolling together down the
hillsides. If Kahwa and I grew noisy in our play, we were certain to be
stopped with a "Wooff, children! be quiet." The fear of man was always
with us, and his presence seemed to pervade the whole of the mountains.

Soon, however, a thing happened which for a time at least drove man and
everything else out of our minds.

We still lingered around the neighborhood of our home, because, I think,
we felt safer there, where we knew every inch of the hills and every
bush, and tree, and stone. It had been very hot for weeks, so that the
earth was parched dry, and the streams had shrunk till, in places where
torrents were pouring but a few weeks ago, there was now no more than a
dribble of water going over the stones. During the day we hardly went
about at all, but from soon after sunrise to an hour or so before sunset
we kept in the shadow of the brushwood along the water's edge.

One evening the sun did not seem to be able to finish setting, but after
it had gone down the red glow still stayed in the sky to westward, and
instead of fading it glowed visibly brighter as the night went on. All
night my father was uneasy, growling and grumbling to himself and
continually sniffing the air to westward; but the atmosphere was
stagnant and hot and dead all night, with not a breath of wind moving.
When daylight came the glow died out of the western sky, but in place of
it a heavy gray cloud hung over the farther mountains and hid their tops
from sight. We went to bed that morning feeling very uncomfortable and
restless, and by mid-day we were up again. And now we knew what the
matter was.

A breeze had sprung up from the west, and when I woke after a few hours'
sleep--sleep which had been one long nightmare of man and thunder-sticks
and broken leg--the air was full of a new smell, very sharp and pungent;
and not only was