and were overridden by the flames in their wild rush onward. Sometimes
only a smutty stump showed where they had stood; sometimes, robbed of
life and every limb, portions of the fire-eaten trunks still remained
erect,--bare, blackened poles. All smaller growth, and even the surface
of the ground, parched by summer heats, had burned like tinder. Rocks
and stones were baked and crumbling.

"Boys, that's the most mournful sight a woodsman can see," said Doc,
looking away over the wrecked region, touched with golden lights from an
October sunset. "It makes one who loves the woods feel as if he had lost
a living friend."

"Well, 'tain't no manner o' use to fret over it," declared Joe
energetically. "Nature don't waste time in fretting, you bet! She starts
in and tries to cover the stripped ground, as if she was sort of ashamed
to have it seen."

The guide pointed earthward. At his feet a dwarfed growth of blueberry
bushes and tiny trees was already springing up to screen the unsightly,
ash-strewn land.

"True enough, Joe! Nature is a grand one for remedies," answered the
doctor. "Still, it will be half a century or more before she can raise a
timber growth here again. Hulloa! Dol, what are you fellows up to?"

While his elders were studying the _brûlée_, Dol, who objected to dreary
sights, had marched down to the brink of the stream, accompanied by
Royal's young brothers, Will and Martin Sinclair. The little river
gurgled and frisked along beside the burnt tract, like a line of life
bordering death. It seemed to the boys to prattle about its victory over