hing basin she stopped. Down into
this, from a shelf twenty feet in height, fell the brook in a bright,
fire-tinted cascade. Fear-inspired as she was, she could not but pause
and wonder at the strange beauty of the scene,--the plashy pool before
her, the flame-color on the veil of silver foam dropped from the brow of
the ledge, and--for a wild background to the picture--the wooded,
fire-lit, shadowy gorge, opening on a higher level above.

During the moment that she stood there, a great bird, like an owl, that
had probably been driven from his hollow tree or fissure in the rocks by
the conflagration, flapped past her face, almost touching her with his
wings, and dashed blindly against the waterfall. He was swept down into
the pool. After some violent fluttering and floundering in the water, he
extricated himself, perched on a stone at its edge, shook out his wet
feathers, and stared at her with large cat-like eyes, without fear. She
was near enough to reach him with her hand; but either he was so dazzled
and stunned that he took no notice of her, or else the greater terror
had rendered him tame to human approach. She believed the latter was the
case, and saw something exceedingly awful in the incident. When even the
wild winged creatures of the forest were stricken down with fear, what
cause had she to apprehend danger to herself!

On reaching the waterfall she had felt for a moment that all was
over--that certain death awaited her. Then, out of her very despair,
came a gleam of hope. She might creep under the cascade, or behind it,
and that would protect her. But when she looked up, and saw, around and
above her, the forest trees with the frightful and ever-increasing glow
upon them, and knew that they too soon must kindle, and thought of
firebrands rained down upon her, and falling columns of fire filling the
gorge with burning rubbish,--then her soul sickened: what protection
would a little sheet of water prove against such furnace heat?

No: she must escape, or perish. Beside the cascade there was a broken
angle of the rocks, by which, if she could reach it, she might at least,
she thought, climb to the upper part of the gorge. But the nearest
foothold she could discover was ten feet above the basin, in sheer
ascent. The ledge was dank and slippery with the dashing spray. Gain the
top of it, however, she must. She ran up the embankment under the cliff.
Here a sapling gave her support; she clung to a crevice or proj