up no matter how close you
were."

"Were they all covered with trees, like this?"

"No, not at all. There were lots of little farms, and olive trees, and
gardens. And sometimes there would be smoke coming from the top of the
mountains."

"You mean the volcanoes, don't you?" said Dolly. "I'd like to see an
eruption some time. Like the ones at Vesuvius."

"I never saw one," said Zara, with a shudder. "But I've seen the paths
where the lava came down, and the places where people were killed, and
where whole villages were wiped out. I'm glad there aren't any around
here."

"So is Dolly, Zara," said Bessie, dryly. "She's always wishing for
things she doesn't really want at all, because she thinks they would be
exciting."

That would have started an argument without fail, if Dolly had not just
then had to devote her attention to something that she noticed before
anyone else. She sniffed the air that came in through the car windows
once or twice.

"I smell smoke," she said.. "And look at the sun! It's so funny and
red. See, you can look at it without it hurting your eyes at all. And
it's a good deal darker, the way it gets before a thunder shower,
sometimes."

"She's right," said Bessie. "I believe the woods must be on fire
somewhere near here."

"I'm afraid they are," said Eleanor Mercer, who had stopped in the
aisle beside them and had overheard Bessie's remark. "But not very
near. You know the smoke from a really big forest fire is often
carried for miles and miles, if the wind holds steady."

"Well, it can't be so very far--not more than twenty or thirty miles,
can it, Miss Eleanor?"

"It's impossible to say, but I have known the smoke from a fire two
hundred miles away to make people uncomfortable. They can't smell it,
but it darkens the air a little."

"Why, I had no idea of that!"

"Well, here's something stranger yet. I heard you all talking about
volcanoes. A good many years ago there was a frightful eruption in
Japan, or near Japan, rather, when a mountain called Krakatoa broke
out. That was the greatest eruption we know anything about. And a
long time afterward people began to notice that the sunsets were very
beautiful half the way around the world from it, and no one knew why,
until the scientists explained that it was the dust from the volcano!"

"Well, I hope this fire isn't where we are going!" said Dolly.

"So do I," said Eleanor. "That's the very first thing I thought