r shower gather around Long's Peak and move
southward, tongues of lightning darting from it venomously. It was
perhaps ten miles wide. It circled Wild Basin, then faced eastward
toward the foothills, its forked tongues writhing wickedly. Those to
the south struck repeatedly; I counted three fires they started, but
two of these the shower extinguished; the third was miles beyond the
edge of the rain, and began spreading even as I watched. Smoke soon
hid the doomed forest, filling the canyon and boiling out beyond it.

Everywhere in the mountains, I had found burned-over forests; ancient
trees that had stood for centuries, had endured drought, flood, storm
and pestilence, only to be burned at last by a fiendish flash and left,
charred skeletons of their former green beauty.

I hurried down from the heights as the fire spread upward along both
sides of the gorge. Upon a bare, rocky ridge, several miles north,
inside the edge of the shower limits, I deposited my pack and turned
the horse homeward, alone. I hoped that I might be able to put out the
fire before it spread too far.

As I hurried in its direction I saw two deer standing in a little
opening watching the smoke intently. They showed no fear, merely
curiosity. But as I approached closer to its smouldering edge, I met
birds in excited, zig-zagging flight. Along a brook I found fresh bear
tracks. Bruin had galloped hastily from the danger zone.

The fire was confined to the heavy timber near the bottom of a canyon,
but was licking its way up both slopes, the backfire eating slowly
downward while the headfire leaped upward. Trees exploded into giant
sparklers. The heat of the approaching flames caused the needles to
exude their sap, combustion occurred almost before the actual fire
touched them. Black acrid smoke arose visible a hundred miles out on
the plains.

Not a breeze stirred where I stood, but the fire seemed fanned by a
strong wind, that swayed it back and forth. It did not travel in a set
direction; one moment it raced westward, paused, smoldered, then burst
forth again, running southward. A little later a flood of flame would
come toward the east. These scattered sorties cut narrow swaths
through the forest, flaming lanes that smoldered at the edges, widened
and combined.

The smoke cloud grew denser. My eyes streamed with tears, my throat
burned, I began to cough. I descended the ridge to cross the canyon--in
the bottom I found litt