In the course of an hour the fire line was well under way. But now wisps
of smoke began to drift down the tree aisles. Birds shot past, at first
by ones and twos, later in flocks. A deer that must have lain perdu to
let them pass bounded across the ridge, his head high, his nostrils
wide. The squirrels ran chattering down the trees, up others, leaped
across the gaps, working always farther and farther to the north. The
cool breeze carried with it puffs of hot air. Finally in distant
openings could be discerned little busy, flickering flames. All at once
the thought gripped Bob hard: the might of the fire was about to test
the quality of his work!
"There she comes!" gasped Charley Morton. "My Lord, how she's run
to-day! We got to close the line to that stone dike."
By one of the lightning transitions of motive with which these
activities seemed to abound, the affair had become a very deadly earnest
sort of race. It was simple. If the men could touch the dike before the
fire, they won.
The realization of this electrified even the weary spirits of the
fire-fighters. They redoubled their efforts.
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