time what of the fire fighters? Ted and Pedro, with their pick and
shovel, had descended rapidly into that deathly silence of the doomed
forest slopes, deserted alike by song birds and chipmunks, the hum of
insects and sound of any living thing, save alone the never-ceasing roar
of the ravenous flames.

The fire had been eating slowly through a stretch of manzanita chaparral,
whose hard stems resisted them as the evergreens could not. Though the
wind still blew up-canyon, they approached the river gorge at right
angles, and were able to make their way to the lower levels in the
shelter of the East side of a dry creek bed, where the hot blast could
not reach them.

They were stooping to drink at a spring when the terrified neigh of a
horse sounded from a clump of saplings almost behind them. In the same
instant the stretch of seedling firs that clothed the creek bank,
showering into sparks at the far end, shot toward them sky rockets of
leaping flame. Turning in a panic to race out at right angles from this
unexpected peril, they thought to make time on horseback. The animal
was tied and hobbled with a rawhide lariat!

Frantically the hobbled horse jerked at the rawhide.

Pedro plucked Ted by the arm and tried to drag him on, for the fire was
snapping through the underbrush at the speed of an express train. Its
sound was that of many trains, and its wind hot as the breath of a blast
furnace.

But as Ted had stooped to cut the thongs, his parched nostrils had caught
a cooler breath. It seemed to issue from a cranny in the rocks behind the
clump of saplings. Then it was too late: The shooting tongues of red were
upon them. Dragging Pedro down beside him,--for the roar drowned his
voice,--he waited, reasoning that the two- or three-foot seedlings would
go like tinder, leaving a strip of ground hot, to be sure, but no longer
flaming.

If they could but endure its passing! He turned to press his scorched
face against the rock wall.

To his amazement, he fell into a cave mouth, tripping Pedro, who stumbled
after him. Quick as thought they dragged the horse in after them and held
him, trembling and snorting, his eyes rolling wildly, during that
blistering moment until the line of fire had passed them.

"We're safer now than before," declared Ted. "This made a fine back-fire,
didn't it?--Let's rest awhile." His nerves were taking toll of him.
"Ground's too _hot yet_ anyway."

For perhaps an hour they rested, flat on t