ng uselessly from
around his shaggy throat, the dog stood staring in blank amaze after
his former adversary. He saw the bear reach the margin of the icy lake
and plunge nose deep into its sheltering waters. Here, as Bruin's
instinct or experience had foretold, no forest fire could harm him. He
need but wallow there until the Red Terror should have swept past and
until the scorched ground should be once more cool enough to walk on.

Lad turned again toward the slope. He was free, now, to follow the
wagon track to the main road and so homeward, guided perhaps by memory,
perhaps by scent; most probably guided by the mystic sixth sense which
has more than once enabled collies to find their way, over hundreds of
miles of strange territory, back to their homes.

But, in the past few minutes, the fire's serpent-like course had taken
a new twist. It had flung volleys of sparks across the upper reach of
granite rock-wall, and had ignited dry wood and brier on the right hand
side of the track. This, far up the mountain, almost at the very foot
of the rock-hillock.

The way to home was barred by a three-foot-high crackling fence of
red-gold flame; a flame which nosed hungrily against the barren rocks
of the knoll-foot; as if seeking in ravenous famine the fuel their bare
surfaces denied it.

And now, the side of the hillock showed other signs of forest life. Up
the steep slope thundered a six-antlered buck, snorting shrilly in
panic and flying toward the cool refuge of the little lake.

Far more slowly, but with every tired muscle astrain, a fat porcupine
was mounting the hill; its claws digging frantically for foothold among
the slippery stones. It seemed to flow, rather than to run. And as it
hurried on, it chuckled and scolded, like some idiot child.

A bevy of squirrels scampered past it. A long snake, roused from its
stony winter lair, writhed eerily up the slope, heedless of its fellow
travelers' existence. A raccoon was breasting the steep, from another
angle. And behind it came clawing a round-paunched opossum; grinning
from the pain of sparks that were stinging it to a hated activity.

The wilderness was giving up its secrets, with a vengeance. And the Red
Terror, as ever, was enforcing a truce among the forest-folk; a truce
bred of stark fear. One and all--of those that had been aroused in time
to get clear of the oncoming fiery sickle--the fugitives were making
for the cool safety of the lake.

Lad scarce saw o