y nevertheless, as a rule, meant just what they said.
It is, of course, not unusual for an imaginative person to describe
what he intends to do in dramatic periods, but while some people are
wisely content with that, the western bushman generally can be
depended on to carry out the purpose.

They said nothing further, and presently went to sleep, with the
crackle of the undergrowth through which the fire crawled ringing in
their ears.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE FIRE

The shack was full of smoke when Weston awakened, coughing, and
drowsily looked about him. Somebody else was spluttering close by, and
in a moment or two he heard Devine relieve himself with a few
expletives. Then Weston got up from his lair of spruce twigs fully
dressed, for the night was chilly and the shack had only three sides
to it, while the men who live in such places not infrequently take off
their clothes to work and put them on when they go to bed.

"The wind has evidently dropped, and the smoke's drifting back. I
can't stand much more of this," said Weston.

Devine, it seemed, had lost his temper.

"Then why don't you get out, instead of worrying people?" he asked.
"Anyway, it's only one of the little luxuries that Saunders and I are
quite accustomed to. I've been eaten by mosquitoes, sandflies, and
other insects of various kinds. You've 'most smashed my ankle, besides
sticking a grub-hoe into me, and Saunders must work out a big stone
just when I was under it. We've been living most of two months on his
rancid pork and grindstone bread, and now you make a circus about a
little smoke!"

He broke off in another fit of spluttering, and the storekeeper's
voice rose out of the vapor which seemed to be rapidly thickening.

"The wind's not dropped. It's shifted, and the fire's working back,"
he said.

In another moment Weston stood gasping in the doorway. A little chilly
breeze, such as often draws down from the ranges in early morning, met
him in the face, and the air was thick with drifting smoke. Hoarse
shouts rose out of it and a patter of running feet, and it became
evident that most of the men were departing hastily for the range or
the remoter forest. Weston, however, could not see them, and it was,
indeed, a few seconds before he saw anything except a confused
glimmering behind a dusky pall of vapor. Then, as the smoke thinned, a
bewildering glare shot up, and ranks of trees were silhouetted against
a sea of fire that flung itself