ld find knelt down to cover all
but my face. Then, with laboring breaths that bubbled the water near my
mouth, I kept still and watched.

The back-fire which I had started swept up over the slope and down the
brook like a charge of red lancers. Spears of flame led the advance. The
flame licked up the dry surface-grass and brush, and, meeting the pines,
circled them in a whirlwind of fire, like lightning flashing upward.
Then came prolonged reports, and after that a long, blistering roar in
the tree-tops. Even as I gazed, appalled in the certainty of a horrible
fate, I thrilled at the grand spectacle. Fire had always fascinated me.
The clang of the engines and the call of "Fire!" would tear me from any
task or play. But I had never known what fire was. I knew now. Storms of
air and sea were nothing compared to this. It was the greatest force
in nature. It was fire. On one hand, I seemed cool and calculated the
chances; on the other, I had flashes in my brain, and kept crying out
crazily, in a voice like a whisper: "Fire! Fire! Fire!"

But presently the wall of fire rolled by and took the roar with it.
Dense billows of smoke followed, and hid everything in opaque darkness.
I heard the hiss of failing sparks and the crackle of burning wood, and
occasionally the crash of a failing branch. It was intolerably hot, but
I could stand the heat better than the air. I coughed and strangled.
I could not get my breath. My eyes smarted and burned. Crawling close
under the bank, I leaned against it and waited.

Some hours must have passed. I suffered, not exactly pain, but a
discomfort that was almost worse. By-and-by the air cleared a little.
Rifts in the smoke drifted over me, always toward the far side of the
canyon. Twice I crawled out upon the bank, but the heat drove me back
into the water. The snow-water from the mountain-peaks had changed from
cold to warm; still, it gave a relief from the hot blast of air. More
time dragged by. Weary to the point of collapse, I grew not to care
about anything.

Then the yellow fog lightened, and blew across the brook and lifted and
split. The parts of the canyon-slope that I could see were seared and
blackened. The pines were columns of living coals. The fire was eating
into their hearts. Presently they would snap at the trunk, crash down,
and burn to ashes. Wreathes of murky smoke circled them, and drifted
aloft to join the overhanging clouds.

I floundered out on the bank, and began to