sly through the air.

Amid the sickening smoke which was already rolling in volumes over the
boat and the terrible uproar and confusion of nature, Herbert and the
trapper kept steadily to their task. But every moment the line of fire
gained on them. The smoke was already at intervals stifling and the heat
of the coming conflagration getting unbearable. Brands began to fall
hissing into the water. Twice had Herbert flung a blazing fragment out
of the boat. And so, in a race literally for life, with the flames
chasing them and their lives in jeopardy, they turned the last bend
above the carry which began at the head of the rapids. But it was too
late; the fiery fragments blown ahead by the high wind had fallen in
front of them, and the landing at the carry itself was actually
enveloped in smoke and flame.

"The fire be ahead of us, boy!" exclaimed the trapper, "and death is
sartinly comin' behind. The odds be agin us to start with, for the smoke
is thick and the fire will be in the bends at least half the way down,
but it's our only chance; we must run the rapids."

"What about the dogs?"

"The pups must shirk for themselves," answered the old man. "I'm sorry,
but the rapids be swift and the waters shaller on the first half of the
stretch. And the pups settle the boat half an inch, ef they settle it a
hair. Yis, overboard with ye, pups! overboard with ye!" commanded the
trapper. "Ye must use the gifts the Lord has gin ye now, or git singed.
I advise ye to keep with the current and come down trailin' the boat;
for man's reason is better than dogs' reason, techin' currents and
eddies, not to speak of falls. But take yer own way; for yer lives be in
jeopardy with yer master's, and ye ought, for sartin, to have the chance
of dyin' as ye like to. But yer best chance is to foller the boat, as I
jedge."

The trapper had continued to talk as if addressing members of the human
and not the canine species; and long before he had finished his remarks,
the hounds had taken to the water and were swimming with all their power
directly in the wake of the boat, as if they had actually understood
their master's injunction, and were, indeed, determined to shoot the
rapids in his wake.

The conflagration was now at its fiercest heat. The smoke whirled upward
in mighty eddies or rolled along in huge convolutions. Through the
fleecy rolls here and there tongues of flame shot fiercely. The river
steamed. The roar of the rushing flames wa