Behind and on either side, where the flames were rushing on with the pitiless ferocity of hunnish regiments, the harvest of death was a vast and shuddering reality.  In hollow logs, under windfalls, in the thick tree-tops, and in the earth itself, the smaller things of the wilderness sought their refuge—­and died.  Rabbits became leaping balls of flame, then lay shrivelled and black; the marten were baked in their trees; fishers and mink and ermine crawled into the deepest corners of the windfalls and died there by inches; owls fluttered out of their tree-tops, staggered for a few moments in the fiery air, and fell down into the heart of the flame.  No creature made a sound—­except the porcupines; and as they died they cried like little children.

In the green spruce and cedar timber, heavy with the pitch that made their thick tops spurt into flame like a sea of explosive, the fire rushed on with a tremendous roar.  From it—­in a straight race—­there was no escape for man or beast.  Out of that world of conflagration there might have risen one great, yearning cry to heaven:  Water—­water—­water!  Wherever there was water there was also hope—­and life.  Breed and blood and wilderness feuds were forgotten in the great hour of peril.  Every lake became a haven of refuge.

To such a lake came Neewa, guided by an unerring instinct and sense of smell sharpened by the rumble and roar of the storm of fire behind him.  Miki had “lost” himself; his senses were dulled; his nostrils caught no scent but that of a world in flames—­so, blindly, he followed his comrade.  The fire was enveloping the lake along its western shore, and its water was already thickly tenanted.  It was not a large lake, and almost round.  Its diameter was not more than two hundred yards.  Farther out—­a few of them swimming, but most of them standing on bottom with only their heads out of water—­were a score of caribou and moose.  Many other shorter-legged creatures were swimming aimlessly, turning this way and that, paddling their feet only enough to keep afloat.  On the shore where Neewa and Miki paused was a huge porcupine, chattering and chuckling foolishly, as if scolding all things in general for having disturbed him at dinner.  Then he took to the water.  A little farther up the shore a fisher-cat and a fox hugged close to the water line, hesitating to wet their precious fur until death itself snapped at their heels; and as if to bring fresh news of this death a second fox dragged himself wearily out on the shore, as limp as a wet rag after his swim from the opposite shore, where the fire was already leaping in a wall of flame.  And as this fox swam in, hoping to find safety, an old bear twice as big as Neewa, crashed panting from the undergrowth, plunged into the water, and swam out.  Smaller things were creeping and crawling and slinking along the shore; little red-eyed ermine, marten, and mink, rabbits, squirrels, and squeaking gophers, and a horde of mice.  And