e woods became a fire opal--opaque in smoke,
with the red glint of innumerable trees glowing in gleaming strata,
marking the course of the wind. Many a bird fluttered and dropped in a
vain effort to escape from the heat--the heat of a blast furnace. The
hedgehog being lazy and loath to move--lay dead--simmering in his
fat. The kingfisher jeered in safety--never before had he seen so
many little dead fish. It was a gala day for him. They stuck against
charred branches conveniently in shallow, out-of-the-way pools. He sat
perched on the top of a giant hemlock chattering over his good luck.
The chipmunk, at the first sinister glare, had skittered away to
safety. He had not had a wink of sleep and his little nose was as
black as his hide from running over charred timber. Often it was a
close squeak with him to keep from burning his feet.

Nothing can tear through a forest like a fire. Its speed is
unbelievable; it strikes with the quickness of a cat--slipping out
myriads of snake-like tongues right and left into the dryest places.
It reasons--it decides--rarely it pardons. It is more dangerous than
an incoming sea; the sea gives warning--the fire gives none. Your
death is only one of many--a burned detail. The forest fire has a leap
which is subtle--ferocious. Things it misses it goes back for until
they crumble and are devoured at its edge. It cuts with the sweep of
a red-hot scythe. All this occurs above the surface. What happens
beneath is worse. It gnaws with the tenacity of a cancer deep into the
ground, lingering hidden until suspicion has passed; then it asserts
itself in a new outbreak in places least suspected. When it is all
over the region lies desolate for years. It becomes a waste, a tangle
of briers--pitiful upstarts of trees and burned stumps.

Had it not been for the trapper's and the Clown's forethought the
fugitives would have fared worse. They had managed to rescue a
nondescript collection of clothing, blankets, mackintoshes, socks,
brogans and two teamsters' overcoats from the partly destroyed lower
shanty. In the storehouse adjoining they, with Blakeman's assistance,
found three hams, matches, a sack of flour, some tea, half a sack of
beans and a few cooking utensils. Everything else had been stolen,
including possibly the new stock of provisions Thayor had telegraphed
for, the debris of two new boxes and the gray ashes of excelsior
giving little doubt that the new provisions had arrived. Holt and
Ski