valley was strewn with the horrible débris. The scene was sickening,
appalling.

For a moment neither lad spoke. The scene before them oppressed them, made
them sick at heart. They knew no language that would convey what was in
their minds. But even yet they did not fully understand the tragedy of a
forest fire. They were soon to learn. Silently they went on; but they had
gone no more than a hundred yards when they came upon a sight that fairly
sickened them. In a little circle, as though the animals had crowded close
together in their terror and helplessness, lay the remains of a number of
deer. The flesh had either been burned or had rotted away; but the most of
the bones and parts of the hides remained. There could be no mistake as to
the identity of the dead animals. The very positions of the skeletons told
a pitiful story. Blinded by smoke and flame, made frantic by the red death
that was sweeping the forest, confused, terror-stricken, weakened by gas
and fumes, the poor beasts had finally crowded together and perished under
the onrushing wave of fire. For a moment the boys gazed at the scene in
fascinated horror; then they turned away, to shut out the picture. They
were oppressed, almost stunned.

They went on. Not a vestige of its former magnificent vegetation covered
the slope. Nothing in the world could be more awful, more desolate, more
disheartening to behold than the area the two chums were now crossing.
Never had either seen anything that so oppressed him. For not only had the
slope of Old Ironsides been laid waste, but the entire bottom had been
swept by fire, and the opposite mountain slope devastated. Before them was
nothing but desolation.

Soon they were near enough to see the sparkle of water in the bottom. In
their horror at their immediate surroundings they had temporarily