of all.

Now the smoke was so heavy and sharp that we coughed and choked. The air
was scorching. We could hear a great crackling and snapping and the
breeze withered the leaves about us. We burrowed. The animals around us
cringed and burrowed. The fire was upon us--and a forest fire in the
evergreen country is terrible.

There was a constant dull roar; our willows swayed and writhed; the
rabbit crept right against me and lay shivering, and the coyotes
whimpered. I flattened myself, and so did the Red Fox Scouts; and with
my face in the ooze I tried to find cool air.

The roaring was steady; and the crackling and snapping was worse than
any Fourth of July. Sparks came whisking down through the willows and
sizzled in the wetness. One lit on a coyote and I smelled burning hair;
and then one lit on me and I had to turn over and wallow on my back to
put it out. "Ouch!" exclaimed Van Sant; and one must have lit on him,
too.

But that was not bad. If we could stand the heat, and not swallow it and
burn our lungs, we needn't mind the sparks; and maybe in ten or fifteen
minutes the worst would be over, when the branches and the brush had
burned.

Of course the first few moments were the ticklish ones. We didn't know
what might happen. But we never said a word. Like the animals we just
waited, and hoped for the best. When I found that we weren't being
burned, and that the roaring and the crackling weren't harming us, I
lifted my head. I sat up; and the Red Fox Scouts sat up, cautiously. We
were still all right. The air was smoky, but the _fire_ hadn't got at
us--and now it probably wouldn't. But this was not at all like Sunday!

The Red Fox Scouts were pale, under their mud; and so was I, I suppose.
I felt pale, and I felt weak and shaky--and I felt thankful. That had
been a mighty narrow escape for us. If we had not found the willows and
the wet, we would have died, it seemed to me.

"How about it?" asked Scout Ward, huskily, and his voice trembled, but
I didn't blame him for that. "It's gone past, hasn't it?"

"Yes," said I. And--

"We're still here," said Scout Van Sant.

"Well," said Ward, soberly--and smiling, too, with cracked lips, "I know
how I feel, and I guess you fellows feel the same way. God was good to
us, and I want to thank Him."

And we kept silent a moment, and did.

The roaring had about quit and the crackling was not nearly so bad. The
air was not fiery hot, any more; it was merely warm. The at