bodies in
their flight before the deadly menace of fire. As it was they made
their way slowly through the parched swamp, so that it was midday when
they came out of the edge of it and up through a green fringe of timber
to the top of a ridge. Before this hour neither had passed through the
horror of a forest fire. But it seized upon them now. It needed no past
experience. The cumulative instinct of a thousand generations leapt
through their brains and bodies. Their world was in the grip of
Iskootao (the Fire Devil). To the south and the east and the west it
was buried in a pall like the darkness of night, and out of the far
edge of the swamp through which they had come they caught the first
livid spurts of flame. From that direction, now that they were out of
the "pocket," they felt a hot wind, and with that wind came a dull and
rumbling roar that was like the distant moaning of a cataract. They
waited, and watched, struggling to get their bearings, their minds
fighting for a few moments in the gigantic process of changing instinct
into reasoning and understanding. Neewa, being a bear, was afflicted
with the near-sightedness of his breed, and he could see neither the
black tornado of smoke bearing down upon them nor the flames leaping
out of the swamp. But he could SMELL, and his nose was twisted into a
hundred wrinkles, and even ahead of Miki he was ready for flight. But
Miki, whose vision was like a hawk's, stood as if fascinated.

The roaring grew more distinct. It seemed on all sides of them. But it
was from the south that there came the first storm of ash rushing
noiselessly ahead of the fire, and after that the smoke. It was then
that Miki turned with a strange whine but it was Neewa now who took the
lead--Neewa, whose forebears had ten thousand times run this same wild
race with death in the centuries since their world was born. He did not
need the keenness of far vision now. He KNEW. He knew what was behind,
and what was on either side, and where the one trail to safety lay; and
in the air he felt and smelled the thing that was death. Twice Miki
made efforts to swing their course into the east, but Neewa would have
none of it. With flattened ears he went on NORTH. Three times Miki
stopped to turn and face the galloping menace behind them, but never
for an instant did Neewa pause. Straight on--NORTH, NORTH, NORTH--north
to the higher lands, the big waters, the open plains.

They were not alone. A caribou sped p