the bushes and traveled on for an hour or more, then lay down and
tried to lick the wound, but it was beyond reach. He could only rub it
against a log. He continued his journey back toward Tallac, and there,
in a cave that was formed of tumbled rocks, he lay down to rest. He
was still rolling about in pain when the sun was high and a strange
smell of fire came searching through the cave; it increased, and
volumes of blinding smoke were about him. It grew so choking that he
was forced to move, but it followed him till he could bear it no
longer, and he dashed out of another of the ways that led into the
cavern. As he went he caught a distant glimpse of a man throwing wood
on the fire by the in-way, and the whiff that the wind brought him
said: "This is the man that was last night watching the sheep."
Strange as it may seem, the woods were clear of smoke except for a
trifling belt that floated in the trees, and Jack went striding away
in peace. He passed over the ridge, and finding berries, ate the first
meal he had known since killing his last sheep. He had wandered on,
gathering fruit and digging roots, for an hour or two, when the smoke
grew blacker, the smell of fire stronger. He worked away from it, but
in no haste. The birds, deer, and wood hares were now seen scurrying
past him. There was a roaring in the air. It grew louder, was coming
nearer, and Jack turned to stride after the wood things that fled.

The whole forest was ablaze; the wind was rising, and the flames,
gaining and spreading, were flying now like wild horses. Jack had no
place in his brain for such a thing; but his instinct warned him to
shun that coming roaring that sent above dark clouds and flying
fire-flakes, and messengers of heat below, so he fled before it, as
the forest host was doing. Fast as he went, and few animals can outrun
a Grizzly in rough country, the hot hurricane was gaining on him. His
sense of danger had grown almost to terror, terror of a kind that he