“Yes, it’s a queer world.  Only a few days ago it came near ending my life up at the cataract, and now it makes amends by saving it,” remarked Jerry.

“The fire doesn’t seem to jump across the river,” observed Will.

“No; and I don’t think it will, unless the wind changes quickly,” said Frank.

“But it seems bound to get to our camp inside of an hour or two.  What d’ye suppose they’ll do with all the duffle?” inquired Bluff uneasily.

“I’m not worried about that.  Mr. Mabie will scent trouble a long way off, and find a refuge among the rocks, if necessary; but I’m inclined to think the fire will never get to him,” replied Frank.

“Do you believe the wind will shift, then, and blow back on us?” asked Will.

“I’m not a wind prophet.  What I had in mind was that the fire would be put out before it got three miles from here.”

“Put out!  Do you mean to say they’ve a fire department up here?” demanded Will.

“Why, certainly; but it doesn’t cost them a cent to maintain it.  Somebody just pulls the string, and the water comes down,” laughed Jerry.

“Oh!  I see now what you mean!  It’s going to rain!”

“Hear! hear.  He’s tumbled to it at last!  Sometimes it seems to me that we’ll just have to get out a special dictionary for Will, so he can find the answers to conundrums without waste of time or energy,” declared Bluff.

“That’s the penalty every genius has to pay,” remarked Will composedly.

Every now and then the boys were compelled to duck their heads beneath the surface of the river, for the heat became unbearable.  When the worst of the fire had gone by on the wings of the furious wind, things began to change a bit for the better.

“Say! don’t you think we might be getting out of here now?” demanded Will, whose teeth, strange to say, were rattling together with the chill of the mountain stream even while the air was still heated around them.

“I suppose it will be safe, and we can stand the heat if it will assist to dry our clothes.  Though for that matter, fellows, it’s ten to one we will be soaked through and through again before we get to camp.”

“This is mighty unhealthy, I think.  Such rapid changes always encourage dangerous ailments,” remarked Will, whose father, now dead, had been a physician.

“All the same, I know several fellows who were very much pleased to make a sudden change a little while back,” asserted Jerry.

They crawled out on the bank.  Will, of course, made straight for the rocky niche toward which he had cast many an anxious look while standing in the river.

“Good!  Everything is all right, boys!  Not a bit of damage done, that I can see!” he called out.

They kept close to the river in making their way along.  Perhaps the main idea in this was to have a handy refuge in case a sudden need arose.

“There she comes!” remarked Bluff, in less than ten minutes.