of flame
shot up the pitch-laden trees and leapt for fifty feet into the
blistering air. The roar of the conflagration was deafening. It drowned
all sound that brute agony and death may have made. And its heat was
terrific. For a few terrible minutes the air which Miki drew into his
lungs was like fire itself. Neewa plunged his head under water every
few seconds, but it was not Miki's instinct to do this. Like the wolf
and the fox and the fisher-cat and the lynx it was his nature to die
before completely submerging himself.

Swift as it had come the fire passed; and the walls of timber that had
been green a few moments before were black and shrivelled and dead; and
sound swept on with the flame until it became once more only a low and
rumbling murmur.

To the black and smouldering shores the live things slowly made their
way. Of all the creatures that had taken refuge in the lake many had
died. Chief of those were the porcupines. All had drowned.

Close to the shore the heat was still intense, and for hours the earth
was hot with smouldering fire. All the rest of that day and the night
that followed no living thing moved out of the shallow water. And yet
no living thing thought to prey upon its neighbour. The great peril had
made of all beasts kin.

A little before dawn of the day following the fire relief came. A
deluge of rain fell, and when day broke and the sun shone through a
murky heaven there was left no sign of what the lake had been, except
for the dead bodies that floated on its surface or lined its shores.
The living things had returned into their desolated wilderness--and
among them Neewa and Miki.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

For many days after the Great Fire it was Neewa who took the lead. All
their world was a black and lifeless desolation and Miki would not have
known which way to turn. Had it been a local fire of small extent he
would have "wandered" out of its charred path. But the conflagration
had been immense. It had swept over a vast reach of country, and for a
half of the creatures who had saved themselves in the lakes and streams
there was only a death by starvation left.

But not for Neewa and his breed. Just as there had been no indecision
in the manner and direction of his flight before the fire so there was
now no hesitation in the direction he chose to seek a live world again.
It was due north and west--as straight as a die. If they came to a
lake, and went around it, Neewa would