f the fire.

A dense smoke soon began to pour out of the top of the chimney. The fire
roared up through the hollow, and it caught outside too, under the bark,
and soon enveloped the whole tree in smoke, sparks, and flame. Large
pieces of the blazing bark detached themselves, from time to time, from
the side of the tree, and came down, crackling and sparkling to the
ground; and the opening below where Caleb had crammed in his fuel, soon
glowed like the mouth of a furnace.

Near the top of the tree was an old branch, or rather the stump of an
old branch, decayed and blackened, reaching out a little way, like an
arm. This was soon enveloped in smoke; and, as Caleb was watching it, as
it appeared and disappeared in the wreaths, he thought he saw something
move. He looked again, intently. It was a squirrel,--half suffocated in
the smoke, and struggling to hold on. Caleb immediately called out to
Raymond as loud as he could call,

"Raymond, Raymond, come here, quick: here is a poor squirrel burning
up."

Raymond dropped his axe, and ran,--bounding over the logs, and hummocks;
but before he reached the place, the squirrel, unable to hold on any
longer, and half stifled with the smoke and scorching heat, dropped from
his hold to the ground. Raymond came up at the moment, and seized him;
he brought him to where Caleb was sitting,--Caleb himself eagerly coming
forward to see.

"Is it dead?" said Caleb.

"Pretty much," said Raymond. The squirrel lay gasping helplessly in
Raymond's hands. "Here, put him in my cap," said Caleb; "that will make
a good bed for him, and perhaps he will come to life again."

Raymond examined him pretty carefully, and he did not seem to be burnt.
He said he thought he must have been suffocated by breathing the smoke
and hot air. Raymond then went back to his work, and Caleb sat upon the
log, watching alternately the squirrel and the burning tree.

In a few minutes a great flame flashed out at the top of the tree: and
finally, after about half an hour, the whole trunk, being all in a
blaze, from top to bottom, began slowly to bend and bend over.

"Raymond," shouted Caleb,--"Raymond, look;--it is going to fall!"

The tall trunk moved at first slowly, but soon more and more rapidly,
and finally came down to the ground with a crash.

The crash startled the little squirrel, so that he almost regained his
feet; and Caleb was afraid that he was going to run away. But he laid
over again upon his sid