rushing down the slope, hissing and roaring like a
tornado. Through the smoke one could see the flames dart from tree to
tree. Before a branch caught fire it was first enveloped in a thin veil
of smoke, then all the needles grew red at one time, and it began to
crackle and blaze.

In the glen below ran a little brook, bordered by elms and small
birches. It appeared as if the flames would halt there. Leafy trees are
not so ready to take fire as fir trees. The fire did pause as if before
a gate that could stop it. It glowed and crackled and tried to leap
across the brook to the pine woods on the other side, but could not
reach them.

For a short time the fire was thus restrained, then it shot a long
flame over to the large, dry pine that stood on the slope, and this was
soon ablaze. The fire had crossed the brook! The heat was so intense
that every tree on the mountain was ready to burn. With the roar and
rush of the maddest storm and the wildest torrent the forest fire flew
over to the ridge.

Then the hawk and the owl rose and the marten dashed down the tree. In a
few seconds more the fire would reach the top of the pine, and the boy,
too, would have to be moving. It was not easy to slide down the long,
straight pine trunk. He took as firm a hold of it as he could, and slid
in long stretches between the knotty branches; finally he tumbled
headlong to the ground. He had no time to find out if he was hurt--only
to hurry away. The fire raced down the pine like a raging tempest; the
ground under his feet was hot and smouldering. On either side of him ran
a lynx and an adder, and right beside the snake fluttered a mother
grouse who was hurrying along with her little downy chicks.

When the refugees descended the mountain to the glen they met people
fighting the fire. They had been there for some time, but the boy had
been gazing so intently in the direction of the fire that he had not
noticed them before.

In this glen there was a brook, bordered by a row of leaf trees, and
back of these trees the people worked. They felled the fir trees nearest
the elms, dipped water from the brook and poured it over the ground,
washing away heather and myrtle to prevent the fire from stealing up to
the birch brush.

They, too, thought only of the fire which was now rushing toward them.
The fleeing animals ran in and out among the men's feet, without
attracting attention. No one struck at the adder or tried to catch the
mother grous