towering trunks from spray to spray, until the dark firs were
garlanded with climbing flame. Beneath them the brushwood crackled
furiously, and every now and then a mighty limb fell amidst a shower
of sparks, while half-charred logs and rows of blackened stumps marked
out the lode. The smoke obscured the sun until the workings were
wrapped in a haze, and it crept into the adit where Weston and his
comrades toiled; but they held on with their fish-oil lamps burning
until the light outside grew dim, and then, crawling back, sore all
over, to the wooden shack which had now replaced the tent, they lay
down outside it when supper was over.

It was an impressive spectacle that they gazed upon. The conflagration
was still not far from them, for, as a rule, a forest fire does not
move very rapidly. Across the valley hung a dusky pall of smoke, and
beneath it all trunks stripped to bare spires stood out black against
a sea of flame. The latter, however, was of no very great extent from
wing to wing, and, now that the wind had almost dropped, it made very
little progress, though it crept on down the valley in a confined
belt, rising and falling in pulsations with the sharp crackle of
licked-up undergrowth breaking through the deep-toned roar. Saunders,
lying propped up on one elbow, watched it meditatively.

"It's a high-class burn," he said. "Going to save somebody quite a lot
of chopping. But if that breeze whipped round there'd sure be
trouble."

As the men at work on the lode lived either in tents or rude shelters
of bark and logs, this seemed very probable; but Weston was not in the
mood to concern himself about the matter then.

"How much giant-powder have we got in hand?" he asked.

"Almost enough to last another three weeks with fuse and detonators to
match. You'll have to find the next lot when that runs out."

Weston laughed.

"I've just sufficient money to take me back to Montreal, traveling
Colonist, and I must go back to see how Wannop's getting on before
very long. What are you going to do then?"

Devine looked at Saunders, who smiled at him.

"Push the adit right on, if we have to cut every foot of it with the
drill," he said. "Before we let up, we'll rip the rock out with our
naked hands."

It was a characteristic answer, but Weston was satisfied with it. He
had discovered that if the men of the Pacific Slope were occasionally
a trifle assertive and what he called flamboyant in their
conversation, the