THE FOREST FIRE.
Though we had come off so happily from our first encounter with man,
none the less we had no desire to see him again. On the contrary, we
determined to keep as far away from him as possible. For my part, I
confess that thoughts of him were always with me, and every thought made
the skin crawl up my back.
Nor was I the only one of the family who was nervous. Father and mother
had become so changed that they were gruff and bad-tempered; and all the
pleasure and light-heartedness seemed to have gone out of our long
rambles. There was no more romping and rolling together down the
hillsides. If Kahwa and I grew noisy in our play, we were certain to be
stopped with a "Wooff, children! be quiet." The fear of man was always
with us, and his presence seemed to pervade the whole of the mountains.
Soon, however, a thing happened which for a time at least drove man and
everything else out of our minds.
We still lingered around the neighborhood of our home, because, I think,
we felt safer there, where we knew every inch of the hills and every
bush, and tree, and stone. It had been very hot for weeks, so that the
earth was parched dry, and the streams had shrunk till, in places where
torrents were pouring but a few weeks ago, there was now no more than a
dribble of water going over the stones. During the day we hardly went
about at all, but from soon after sunrise to an hour or so before sunset
we kept in the shadow of the brushwood along the water's edge.
One evening the sun did not seem to be able to finish setting, but after
it had gone down the red glow still stayed in the sky to westward, and
instead of fading it glowed visibly brighter as the night went on. All
night my father was uneasy, growling and grumbling to himself and
continually sniffing the air to westward; but the atmosphere was
stagnant and hot and dead all night, with not a breath of wind moving.
When daylight came the glow died out of the western sky, but in place of
it a heavy gray cloud hung over the farther mountains and hid their tops
from sight. We went to bed that morning feeling very uncomfortable and
restless, and by mid-day we were up again. And now we knew what the
matter was.
A breeze had sprung up from the west, and when I woke after a few hours'
sleep--sleep which had been one long nightmare of man and thunder-sticks
and broken leg--the air was full of a new smell, very sharp and pungent;
and not only was there the smell, but with the breeze the cloud from the
west had been rolling towards us, and the whole mountain-side was
covered with a thin haze, like a mist, only different from any mist that
I had seen. And it was this haze that smelled so strongly. Instead of
clearing away, as mist ought to do when the sun grows hot, this one
became denser as the day went on, half veiling the sun itself. And we
soon found that things--unusual things--were going on in the mountains.
The birds were flying excitedly about, and the squirrels chattering, and
everything was travelling from west to east, and on all sides we heard
the same thing.
"The world's on fire! quick, quick, quick!" screamed the squirrels as
they raced along the ground or jumped from tree to tree overhead. "Fire!
fire!" called the myrtle-robin as it passed. "Firrrrrre!" shouted the
blue jay. A coyote came limping by, yelping that the end of the world
was at hand. Pumas passed snarling and growling angrily, first at us,
and then over their shoulders at the smoke that rolled behind. Deer
plunged up to us, stood for a minute quivering with terror, and plunged
on again into the brush. Overhead and along the ground was an almost
constant stream of birds and animals, all hurrying in the same
direction.
Presently there came along another family of bears, the parents and two
cubs just about the size of Kahwa and myself, the cubs whimpering and
whining as they ran. The father bear asked my father if we were not
going, too; but my father thought not. He was older and bigger than the
other bear, and had seen a forest fire when he was a cub, and his father
then had saved them by taking to the water.
"If a strong winds gets up," he said, "you cannot escape by running
away from the fire, because it will travel faster than you. It may drive
you before it for days, until you are worn out, and there's no knowing
where it will drive you. It may drive you unexpectedly straight into
man. I shall try the water."
The others listened to what he had to say, but they were too frightened
to pay much attention, and soon went on again, leaving us to face the
fire. And I confess that I wished that father would let us go, too.
Meanwhile the smoke had been growing thicker and thicker. It made eyes
and throat smart, and poor little Kahwa was crying with discomfort and
terror. Before sunset the air was so thick that we could not see a
hundred yards in any direction, and as the twilight deepened the whole
western half of the sky, from north to south and almost overhead, seemed
to be aflame. Now, too, we could hear the roaring of the fire in the
distance, like the noise the wind makes in the pine-trees before a
thunderstorm. Then my father began to move, not away from the fire,
however, but down the stream, and the stream ran almost due west
straight towards it. What a terrible trip that was! The fire was, of
course, much farther away than it looked; the smoke had been carried
with the wind many miles ahead of the fire itself, and we could not yet
see the flames, but only the awful glare in the sky. But, in my
inexperience, I thought it was close upon us, and, with the dreadful
roaring growing louder and louder in my ears, every minute was an agony.
[Illustration: "NOT FIFTY YARDS AWAY WAS MAN."]
But my father and mother went steadily on, and there was nothing to do
but to follow them. Sometimes we left the stream for a little to make a
short-cut, but we soon came back to it, and for the most part we kept in
the middle of the water, or where it was deep close to the bank.
At last we reached our pool above the beaver-dam, and here, feeling his
way cautiously well out into the middle, till he found a place where it
was just deep enough for Kahwa and me to be able to lift our heads above
the water, father stopped. By this time the air was so hot that it was
hard to breathe without dipping one's mouth constantly in the water, and
for the roaring of the flames I could not hear Kahwa whimpering at my
side, or the rush of the stream below the dam. And we soon found that we
were not alone in the pool. My friend the kingfisher was not there, but
close beside us were old Grey Wolf and his wife, and, as I remembered
that Grey Wolf was considered the wisest animal in the mountains, I
began to feel more comfortable, and was glad that we had not run away
with the others. The beavers--what a lot of them there were!--were in a
state of great excitement, climbing out on to the top of the dam and
slapping the logs and the water with their tails, then plunging into the
water, only to climb out again and plunge in once more. Once a small
herd of deer, seven or eight of them, came rushing into the water,
evidently intending to stay there, but their courage failed them.
Whether it was the proximity of Grey Wolf or whether it was mere
nervousness I do not know, but after they had settled down in the water
one of them was suddenly panic-stricken, and plunged for the bank and
off into the woods, followed by all the rest.
When we reached the pool there was still one ridge or spur of the
mountains between us and the fire, making a black wall in front of us,
above which was nothing but a furnace of swirling smoke and red-hot air.
It seemed as if we waited a long time for the flames to top that wall,
because, I suppose, they travelled slowly down in the valley beyond,
where they did not get the full force of the wind. Then we saw the sky
just above the top of the wall glowing brighter from red to yellow; then
came a few scattered, tossing bits of flame against the glow and the
swirling smoke; and then, with one roar, it was upon us. In an instant
the whole line of the mountain ridge was a mass of flame, the noise
redoubled till it was almost deafening, and, as the wind now caught it,
the fire leaped from tree to tree, not pausing at one before it
swallowed the next, but in one steady rush, without check or
interruption, it swept over the hill-top and down the nearer slope, and
instantaneously, as it seemed, we were in the middle of it.
I remember recalling then what my father had said to the other bears
about not being able to run away from the fire if the wind were blowing
strongly.
Had we not been out in the middle of the pool, we must have perished.
The fire was on both sides of the stream--indeed, as we learned later,
it reached for many miles on both sides, and where there was only the
usual width of water the flames joined hand across it and swept up the
stream in one solid wall. Where we were was the whole width of the
pool, while, besides, the beavers had cut down the larger trees
immediately near the water, so there was less for the fire to feed upon.
But even so I did not believe that we could come through alive. It was
impossible to open my eyes above water, and the hot air scorched my
throat. There was nothing for it but to keep my head under water and
hold my breath as long as I could, then put my nose out just enough to
breathe once, and plunge it in again. How long that went on I do not
know, but it seemed to me ages; though the worst of it can only have
lasted for minutes. But at the end of those minutes all the water in
that huge pool was hot.
I saw my father raising his head and shoulders slowly out of the water
and beginning to look about him. That gave me courage, and I did the
same. The first thing that I realized was that the roaring was less
loud, and then, though it was still almost intolerably hot, I found that
it was possible to keep one's head in the open air and one's eyes open.
Looking back, I saw that the line of flame had already swept far away,
and was even now surmounting the top of the next high ridge; and it was,
I knew, at that moment devouring the familiar cedars by our home, just
as it had devoured the trees on either side of the beavers' pool. On all
sides of us the bigger trees were still in flames, and from everywhere
thick white smoke was rising, and over all the mountain-side, right down
to the water's edge, there was not one green leaf or twig. Everything
was black. The brushwood was completely gone. The trees were no more
than bare trunks, some of them still partially wreathed in flames. The
whole earth was black, and from every side rose columns and jets and
streams of smoke. It seemed incredible that such a change could have
been wrought so instantaneously. It was awful. Just a few minutes and
what had been a mountain-side clothed in splendid trees, making one
dense shield of green, sloping down to the bottom-land by the stream,
with its thickets of undergrowth, and all the long cool green herbage by
the water, had been swept away, and in its place was only a black and
smoking wilderness. And what we saw before our eyes was the same for
miles and miles to north and south of us, for a hundred miles to the
west from which the fire had come; and every few minutes, as long as the
wind held, carried desolation another mile to eastward.
And what of all the living things that had died? Had the animals and
birds that had passed us earlier in the day escaped? The deer which had
fled from the pool at the last moment--they, I knew, must have been
overtaken in that first terrible rush of the flames; and I wondered what
the chances were that the bears who had declined to stay with us, the
squirrels, the coyote, the pumas, and the hosts of birds that had been
hurrying eastward all day, would be able to keep moving long enough to
save themselves. And what of all the insects and smaller things that
must be perishing by millions every minute? I do not know whether I was
more frightened at the thought of what we had escaped or grateful to my
father for the course he had taken.
It is improbable that I thought of all this at the time, but I know I
was dreadfully frightened; and it makes me laugh now to think what a
long time it was before we could persuade Kahwa to put her head above
water and look about her. Our eyes and throats were horribly sore, but
otherwise none of us was hurt. But though we were alive, life did not
look very bright for us. Where should we go? That was the first
question. And what should we find to eat in all this smoking
wilderness? While we sat in the middle of the pool wondering what we
could do or whether it would be safe to do anything, we saw Grey Wolf
start to go away. He climbed out on the bank while his wife sat in the
water and watched him. He got out safely, and then put his nose down to
snuff at the ground. The instant his nose touched the earth he gave a
yelp, and plunged back into the water again. He had burnt the tip of his
nose, for the ground was baking hot, as we soon discovered for
ourselves. When we first stepped out on shore, our feet were so wet that
we did not feel the heat, but in a few seconds they began to dry, and
then the sooner we scrambled back into the water again, the better.
How long it would have taken the earth to cool again I do not know. It
was covered with a layer of burned stuff, ashes, and charred wood, which
everywhere continued smouldering underneath, and all through the morning
of the next day little spirals of smoke were rising from the ground in
every direction. Fortunately, at mid-day came a thunderstorm which
lasted well on towards evening, and when the rain stopped the ground had
ceased smoking. Many of the trees still smouldered and burned inside.
Sometimes the flame would eat its way out again to the surface, so that
the tree would go on burning in the middle of the wet forest until it
was consumed; and for days afterwards, on scratching away the stuff on
the surface, we would come to a layer of half burned sticks that was
still too hot to touch.
We of course kept to the stream. There along the edges we found food,
for the rushes and grass and plants of all kinds had burned to the
water-line, but below that the stems and roots remained fresh and good.
But it was impossible to avoid getting the black dust into one's nose
and mouth, and our throats and nostrils were still full of the smell of
the smoke. No amount of water would wash it out. The effect of the
thunderstorm soon passed off, and by the next day everything was as dry
as ever, and the least puff of wind filled the air with clouds of black
powder which made us sneeze, and, getting into our eyes, kept them red
and sore. I do not think that in all my life I have spent such a
miserable time as during those days while we were trying to escape from
the region of the fire.
Of course, we did not know that there was any escape. Perhaps the whole
world had burned. But my father was sure that we should get out of it
some time or other if we only kept straight on. And keep on we did,
hardly ever leaving the water, but travelling on and on up the stream as
it got smaller and smaller, until finally there was no stream at all,
but only a spring bubbling out of the mountain-side. So we crossed over
the burnt ground until we came to the beginning of another stream on the
other side, and followed that down just as we had followed the first one
up. And perhaps the most dreadful thing all the time was the utter
silence of the woods. As a rule, both day and night, they were full of
the noises of other animals and birds, but now there was not a sound in
all the mountains. We seemed to be the only living things left.
The stream which we now followed was that on which the men whom we had
seen were camping, and presently we came to the place where they had
been. The chopped-log house was a pile of ashes and half-burnt wood.
About the ruins we found all sorts of curious things that were new to
us--among them, things which I now know were kettles and frying-pans;
and we came across lumps of their food, but it was all too much covered
with the black powder to be eatable. There we stayed for the best part
of a day, and then we went on without having seen a sign of man himself,
and wondering what had become of him.
Seven or eight days had passed since the fire, when, the day after we
passed the place where man had lived, we came to a beaver-dam across the
stream, and the beavers told us that, some hours before the fire reached
there, they had seen the men hurrying downstream, but they did not know
whether they had succeeded in escaping or not. And now other life began
to reappear. We met badgers and woodchucks and rats which had taken
refuge in their holes, and had at first been unable to force their way
out again through the mass of burnt stuff which covered the ground and
choked up their burrows. The air, too, began to be full of insects,
which had been safe underground or in the hearts of trees, and were now
hatching out. And then we met birds--woodpeckers first, and afterwards
jays, which were working back into the burnt district, and from them it
was that we first learned for certain that it was only a burnt district,
and that there was part of the world which had escaped. So we pushed on,
until one morning, when daylight came, we saw in the distance a
hill-top on which the trees still stood with all their leaves
unconsumed. And how good and cool it looked!
We did not stop to sleep, but travelled on all through the day, going as
fast as we could along the rocky edges of the stream, which was now
almost wide enough to be a river, when suddenly we heard strange noises
ahead of us, and we knew what the noises were, and that they meant man
again. Men were coming towards us along the bank of the stream, so we
had to leave it and hurry into the woods. There, though there was no
shelter but the burnt tree-stumps, we were safe and all we had to do was
to squat perfectly still, and it was impossible even for us, at a little
distance, to distinguish each other from burnt tree-stumps. So we sat
and watched the men pass. There were five of them, each carrying a
bundle nearly as big as himself on his back, and they laughed and talked
noisily as they passed, without a suspicion that four bears were looking
at them from less than a hundred yards away.
As soon as they had passed, we went on again, and before evening we came
to places where the trees were only partly burned; here and there one
had escaped altogether. Then, close by the stream, a patch of willows
was as green and fresh as if there had been no fire; and at last we had
left the burnt country behind us. How good it was--the smell of the dry
pine-needles and the good, soft brown earth underneath, and the delight
of the taste of food that was once more free from smoke, and the glory
of that first roll in the green grass among the fresh, juicy undergrowth
by the water!
That next day we slept--really slept--for the first time since the night
in the beavers' pool.